\n Working Life<\/a>\u00a0is a monthly column in which Texans talk about their jobs. <\/p>\n
Getting cornered by a copperhead in the wild is frightening enough, but what to do when a snake slithers onto your property? Try calling Brett Parker, the 41-year-old owner and sole employee of Hill Country Snake Removal<\/a>. To his customers, he\u2019s a savior. To the snakes, he\u2019s a one-way trip to a patch of ground blessedly free of humans.<\/p>\n I blame my interest in snakes on my grandma. I grew up in Spring and Cedar Park, but she had a little farm in Splendora, and one time I watched her take a hoe and chop up a garter snake. \u201cThe only good snake is a dead snake,\u201d she said. Even as a five-year-old I knew that wasn\u2019t right<\/a>. After that I started catching all the snakes I could, venomous<\/a> or not. I\u2019ve never been afraid<\/a> of them.<\/p>\n I went to college in Belton then moved to Canyon Lake, outside San Antonio. Word got out that I knew about snakes. Once, a fire chief received a distress call from a lady who\u2019d moved from Michigan and had snakes in her house. I went over and found some baby water snakes and spent about an hour talking to her about common breeds in the area, which ones were venomous and which weren\u2019t. Before I left, she asked me what I charged, and I kind of looked at her funny. I\u2019ve been in the snake-removal business for about ten years since. The spring and fall are the busiest. I get two types of calls, most often about western diamondback rattlesnakes<\/a>: Either somebody saw one last week and wants me to come look around their property, or they\u2019re looking at one right now and want me to come immediately.<\/p>\n I show up, catch the snake, secure it. Usually I use a snake hook\u2014I\u2019ll pull the snake\u2019s tail toward me, grab it with my hand, and use the hook to keep its head away. Then I just put it in a bucket. I try to relocate them away from populated areas, where they won\u2019t run into anybody.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve only been bit once. About two years ago there was a rattlesnake on the floor in my garage, and I was going to put it in one of my cages. But there was already a snake in that cage\u2014I didn\u2019t look before I opened it up\u2014and when I slid the door open, I scared him. He popped my hand real quick. That wasn\u2019t any fun, but three days and 26 vials of antivenom later, my hand was fine.<\/p>\n A lot of what people think they know about snakes is wrong, and that drives their irrational fear<\/a>. They\u2019ll categorize snakes as \u201cgood\u201d nonvenomous ones or \u201cbad\u201d venomous ones. Either way, nobody wants one on their front porch, which I get. But there\u2019s no point in killing a snake when you can just take it away from your house and let it keep doing its thing. My goal is to empower my clients: to not be so terrified of snakes and to respect them.\u00a0<\/p>\n This interview was edited for clarity and length.<\/p>\n![\"Photo](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/working-life-snake-wrangler-2.jpg\")
Parker\u2019s snake hook in action. Photograph by Josh Huskin ![\"Photo](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/working-life-snake-wrangler-3.jpg\")
He wasn\u2019t afraid of snakes as a child, and he doesn\u2019t appear to be so now. Photograph by Josh Huskin <\/p>\n