Rattle-snake hunters in Southeatern Georgia

Celebrate diversity. Some people like to play concert piano, some people like to hunt diamondbacks.

From http://www.accessnorthga.com/news/ap_new...ry.asp?ID=30709:
 
Grady County hunters showed up Saturday with 83 of the 320 diamondbacks turned in at the 44th annual Whigham Rattlesnake Roundup, a major community fund-raising event for the southwestern Georgia town of 602.
(...) Its just fun, Stuckey said. Its a male bonding thing. The women are at home.
(...) I dont want to get too close to them, said Martha Carter, 59, of Cairo. I imagine theyre like humans _ if you bother them, they might bother you.
(...) Snake hunter LaRue Sheffield, 42, of Douglas, lifted some of the larger rattlers out of their boxes and walked around the ring showing them to the spectators. Some of the visitors shrieked and jerked away from the fence. Diamondbacks can grow to at least six feet long.
(...) Berl Hawthorne of Whigham won the prize for the heaviest snake at 7.3 pounds and Tommy Lancos, also of Whigham, was awarded a prize for having the most snakes, 102. Organizers said they expected the attendance to soar above 25,000, thousands more than last year.

Animal activists are concerned, as one method to catch the snakes involves using gasoline fumes to roust snakes from gopher tortoise burows. Organizers "discourage" the practice.

08:12 AM