'The Snake Man' Enters His Busy Season

ORANGE PARK, FL -- He served our nation proudly for 31 years with the U.S. Navy. But for more than 50-years, Maynard Cox has been known as, "The Snake Man."

"Here's why I always make sure that I've got a hold of his head right, see that bunch of teeth? If he ever got a hold of you he'd tear a chunk right out of you!"

Cox attributes much of his ability to "charm" these powerful sinewy slithering creatures to his Cherokee heritage.

He also bears a permanent disfigurement of his right index finger reduced to a hook with a fingernail growing out of it from the most serious of dozens of bites over the years.

"I was catching a snake in this lady's house and I wasn't watching close enough and he struck. His fangs hit the bone and stopped. I thought, 'BOY!'"

Cox says this time of year, college students who bought a pet snake in their freshman year are graduating, leaving academia and their pets behind.

"They grow over a foot a year if they're well fed, and that's why people get rid of them. A snake this size would eat a full-grown rabbit every week!"

So these days his phone can ring ten times a day to eliminate a pesty former pet that's been released into a normally tranquil neighborhood.

"Probably within a week or less I'll get the call, 'Hey! Come get this snake out of my back yard! He's eating my baby puppies and chasing my chickens! By God... Come QUICK!'"

As for retirement, Maynard's tried it three times so far, but he says it didn't work out. Despite his livelihood, he supports letting "good" non-poisonous snakes live.

"A snake will eat his weight in rodents in a month's time. They need to quit killing them because they do more good alive than they do dead!"

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