MENDOCINO CO., 4/27/26 — In places like Brooktrails, this is the time of year when people start looking down a little more carefully.
The grass is up. The days are warming. Kids run ahead on the trail. Somebody steps out toward the woodpile. Somebody else starts clearing brush. And after the recent snakebite death in Redwood Valley, a lot of people in Mendocino County are asking the same question: Are there more rattlesnakes out this year, or are people just noticing them more?
It may be too early to answer that cleanly.
But from interviews with people who work around snakes in Mendocino County and the North Bay — and from field research on how Northern Pacific rattlesnakes actually use the landscape — a few things are starting to come into focus.
The local message, first, is don’t panic.
Instead, pay attention.
What people are seeing
John Delgado, who lives in Brooktrails and has been relocating rattlesnakes in Mendocino County for years, said the first thing people should do is to remember to watch for them.
“You need to look for them like you look for poison oak,” Delgado said.
That feels like the most Mendocino County advice possible — not alarmist, not abstract, just practical. In a rural place, some kinds of awareness are part of daily life. You teach your kids what poison oak looks like. You watch where you put your hands in blackberry thickets, woodpiles and tall grass. Snakes belong in that category too.
Delgado said it also helps to know what lives here. In this part of Northern Calif., he said, the rattlesnake people are most likely to run into is the Northern Pacific rattlesnake.
“That’s the only subspecies of rattlesnakes that we have in this area,” he said.
He said even people who dislike snakes should learn the difference between a rattlesnake and a harmless gopher snake, which is often mistaken for one.
“A gopher snake is good for your yard,” Delgado said.
That is not a minor point. Bad information leads to bad decisions, and a lot of harmless snakes get killed because people do not know what they are looking at.
Why it may not be just the weather
The easiest explanation for a season like this is the weather. A warm early spring wakes snakes up sooner and sends more people outside sooner too.
That may be true as far as it goes.
But James McCloskey of North Bay Rattlesnake Removal said he thinks another factor may be helping keep more snakes close to homes and rural properties: food.
McCloskey said tighter rodenticide rules may mean more rats, mice and ground squirrels survive around developed areas. If that is happening, he said, rattlesnakes may have more reason to stay near certain properties rather than roam farther for food. Those restrictions were put in place in part because poisoned rodents can also harm owls and other predators that eat rodents.
“If there’s a lot of mice and rats, bugs and ground squirrels, whatever, and they can get food, then they’ll stay there, and they’ll multiply,” McCloskey said. “That’s when people start seeing them more often.”
McCloskey did not present that as settled science. He framed it as a plausible explanation for what he sees around homes.
And that is an important distinction in this story generally. There may not be just one answer.
Around houses and outbuildings, prey may be part of it. Out on trails and in open country, the picture may look different.
Where you are matters
John Roney, park manager at Sugarloaf Ridge State Park, whose operations are managed by Sonoma Ecology Center, said rattlesnake sightings are not unusual there. But neither, he said, is the basic advice.
“There’s a decent chance you’ll see one,” Roney said. “What we typically tell people is that rattlesnakes in this area aren’t aggressive. But they don’t like to be stepped on or reached into.”
That distinction comes up again and again in conversations about snakes. They are not out looking for people. But they also do not want to be surprised, cornered or grabbed at.
“They’re generally very afraid of us,” Roney said. “If you stay away from them, eventually, they’ll move on.”
Roney said that in nearly 13 years at Sugarloaf Ridge, he has never had a reported snakebite at the park.
That does not erase the danger of a bite. But it does help keep the moment in proportion. A visible snake is not automatically an aggressive one, and more awareness does not necessarily mean a population explosion.
What the landscape tells them to do
There is also a simpler explanation for why snakes may seem to appear all at once in certain places this time of year: they are not using the landscape randomly.
A 2011 study of Northern Pacific rattlesnakes found that their hibernation sites “occurred primarily on south-facing talus slopes.” The researchers also found those sites were warmer at the surface and gave snakes better spring basking opportunities after winter.
In plain English, snakes tend to favor rocky, sun-facing ground that helps them warm up.
That fits a lot of familiar Mendocino terrain — dry slopes, road cuts, rocky edges, sunny openings, woodpiles, outbuildings and brushy rural property. People can go a long time without seeing one, then see several in places that suddenly seem obvious in hindsight.
What not to believe
After a fatality, bad snake lore spreads quickly.
One of the most persistent myths is that baby rattlesnakes are more dangerous than adults because they cannot control their venom. A recent review of rattlesnake myths found that idea has persisted despite evidence to the contrary. Juvenile rattlesnakes are not automatically more dangerous just because they are young.
That does not make a small rattlesnake harmless. It just means people should be careful about repeating folk wisdom as fact.
The better rule is far simpler: if you are not sure what you are looking at, give it space.
What to do now
The practical advice, in the end, is not very dramatic.
Watch where you step. Watch where you put your hands. Do not step over logs or reach into brush without looking first. Around the house, be careful near sheds, rock walls, tall grass and woodpiles. On the trail, slow down.
And if you see a snake, leave it alone.
If someone is bitten, call 911, keep the person as still as possible and get medical care fast.
The bigger question — whether there are actually more rattlesnakes out this year — may take longer to answer. But after Redwood Valley, people in Mendocino County are paying closer attention.
That is probably not a bad thing.
Out here, it helps to know the landscape. It helps to know poison oak. And this time of year, it helps to know what else might be lying still in the grass, just trying not to get stepped on.