My research says they eat aquatic things like frogs and lizards. I would actually like to keep frogs and lizards around because they're the real bug eaters.

@Lorajay Let 'em be around, will keep the balance.

@Lorajay I had a ribbon snake and fed it feeder fish and Cuban tree frogs. They and garters are fairly chill except for the nervous musking thing. I don’t understand the hate people have for snakes. Must be a Biblical thing.

Here’s a juvenile riingneck snake I shooed away from my A/C drain not long ago. These are very beautiful underneath.

@Scott321 non-venomous snakes are fine with me but I become an excellent snake killer for a rattler.

Gotta protect the native birds

@Flyingsaucesir What’s left of them, yeah.

I lived in England for many years and never saw one there.

@Zealandia Never saw a native bird in England? Damn. That's sad.

@Flyingsaucesir Didn’t state clearly, I meant a snake. Despite walking around in the country side.

Having said that, see more sparrows in NZ in a day than I saw in the Uk in my whole time there. Have no idea where those went.

@Zealandia Bird hunting used to be a big thing with the English upper crusties. They would have big hunting parties and kill hundreds of birds in an afternoon. Between that and cats, how many native species have gone extinct?

@Flyingsaucesir Yeah, hunting birds is still a thing in the UK, pheasants and the like.

Unfortunately, lots of birds are extinct in NZ.

About 15 species have become extinct since 1850 and so can be seen and illustrated by skins preserved in museums. Three species (laughing owl, bush wren and South Island snipe) were even photographed in life before they became extinct

New Zealand currently has 23 bird species at risk of immediate extinction, including the orange-fronted parakeet (Kākāriki), Chatham Island black robin, New Zealand fairy tern and the white heron.

There’s a real awareness of the damage cats can do to wildlife, and a sense that something needs to change.

In Australia, from July this year new pet cats in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) have to either stay inside or hang out in catios. That’s the city of Canberra. NZ may go down that route.

I was wondering that myself. Perhaps he is a bully and only does small snakes. His gopher catches are almost as big as him though.

It's the real thing

The pause that refreshes