13 minute read
The Art of Snakes and Disregarding Fear
Whether Nigel Smith herps for the cool snakes, inner peace or personal activism, one fact remains: herpetology is much more than a casual pastime for the Midwestern native.
Written by Ka'Dia Dhatnubia, Photographed by Geoff Haggray
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It began behind a library beside the discarded books bin. A little Black boy stared with big brown eyes, mesmerized by pictures of snakes in a book his mom found. After digging and digging, devoted to finding books for her two sons despite their impoverished circumstances, this book would be the one to spark a life-long love in one of them.
Two years later, that same little boy came face-to-face with his first snake on a nature walk with some older neighborhood boys. “I ran and I grabbed the snake, and it bit the hell out of me.” Nigel Smith laughed one of those deep-rooted, home-grown laughs. “It bit the hell out of me and pooped everywhere. I felt so intensely satisfied there, staring at that snake, with that snake in my hand, and I’ve been hooked ever since.”
Nigel Smith works as assistant manager at Maple Street Biscuit Company. Although he has a wife and two sons of his own, his comforting warmth is such that the majority twenty-something staff also call him Dad. If you ever find yourself at the Broughton Street restaurant, you’ll no doubt hear his laugh echo through the open kitchen.
When Nigel isn’t at his day job, he spends his free time exploring the outdoors as a “herper” and amateur herpetologist. He’s well aware of and amused by the term’s unfortunately close phonic connection to herpes, but he assured it has nothing to do with the sexually transmitted disease.
Herpers find reptiles and amphibians for fun, while amateur herpetologists “study reptiles and amphibians without an official degree in herpetology.”
After his close encounter at age 7, Nigel began herping in the woods by his neighborhood at 8 years old. “And I would get whoopins’ for it. Because, you know, an 8-year-old kid, well, to my mom, she thought I shouldn’t be walking in the woods by myself.” To alleviate his mother’s worries, he read all of the books he could to
assure her there were no poisonous snakes in their area. Of course, his mom, like any, still wasn’t too convinced. To her, a young Black kid had no business in the rural outdoors. To Nigel, the outdoors were nothing more than just another environment he had to learn the rules of, a skill he’d developed very young.
Throughout his entire childhood, his family never stayed in one place for more than two years. From a year in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to a year in Mississippi then two years in Gary, Indiana, to two years in Milwaukee. After Milwaukee, they moved back to Michigan where they stayed until he was 16. Despite periods of homelessness and lessthan-ideal circumstances, the moving around no doubt played a role in Nigel’s affinity for exploring new places. Herping kept him out of trouble by keeping him busy and provided an escape from the instability of his home life.
For the better part of his youth, Nigel scouted the wilderness alone, until he connected with a community through a message board on fieldherping.com. “This was the late 90s, early 2000s. Now, everybody’s moved to Facebook,” he said. There were “nationwide meetings, meet and greets, where [the community] would get out into the field and look for animals and get to know people.”
When asked if you had to be at least a little crazy to be a herper, Nigel couldn’t stop laughing. In short, “Not necessarily but it helps.” He described the eclectic community as “some of the strangest hobbyists in the world,” concluding that insanity was less a requirement and more a natural expectation. “You know how every psychologist or therapist you meet is a little bit off?” He contained another laughing fit. “Anyone into herpetology and reptiles will tell you the same thing: These f***ers are crazy.”
While it would be easy to imagine a quirky group of people all happily gushing about their niche interests and comparing their most exciting reptilian discoveries, the herpetologist community is also known for its aggressively competitive nature. “Some of us spend our time looking for very rare snakes, and herpetologists themselves, they have to fight for resources. They have to fight for grants and things like that,” Nigel said. Not only do they compete over resources, but also land. “There are limited areas that these animals exist in. So, when you come in areas, people can be very territorial.”
Competitive, jealous, egotistical. Nigel even went so far as to use the word “warring” between different universities and schools of thought. “They have to come up with something more clever, more engaging than the next university just to secure their amount of funding,” he said. While a majority of this funding is obtained at the federal and state level, the latest organization Nigel was working with, the Orianne Society, “had a philanthropist, a wealthy benefactor that secured their funding and continues to secure their funding.” In that way, they are one of the lucky ones.
Despite his lack of degree and license, Nigel is well-respected within the community, working closely with scientists and researchers to provide reptilian and amphibian subjects. He connected with different societies through friends of friends. “It’s a reputation thing,” he said. “I’m known for not abusing the snakes and not collecting the snakes. Those same snakes that I give to the scientists are worth hundreds of dollars, ’cause they’re really rare snakes sometimes.”
The line of work isn’t without its challenges though. And, surprisingly, those challenges don’t include the snakes.
As Nigel started his car and began to drive home from his latest herping excursion for the Orianne Society, he said, “I’m about twoand-a-half hours from Savannah, deep in the middle of the woods, deep in Confederate flag country.” He recounted the 16 times he’d been pulled over during his three years living in Georgia; 14 of those times happened while he was out herping. “Their excuse is always that I have an out of county tag. Sometimes, they’re racist and they just blatantly tell me,” he said. “Sometimes, they’re like, ‘Oh, well, you’re just out here, you look like you don’t belong out here.’ That’s their way of telling me, ‘Hey, you’re a Black guy in the middle of the woods, what the f*** are you doing here?’”
Still, to Nigel, none of that matters. “I love these animals so much that I’m willing to go through that just to enjoy their presence, just to spread the word about them, just to share that joy,” he said.
Even as he confessed the lethal disadvantages he faces as a Black man, his voice didn’t waver. “It’s always a fear of mine that I’ll get cornered out here and shot.” He drove ahead, steady and unhurried. “I would love to curse [police officers] out. I always stay calm, tactful, ’cause I understand that any of these interactions can go the opposite direction.”
Nigel revealed that one of his favorite places to search for snakes and salamanders is 15 minutes away from where Ahmaud Arbery was shot and killed. Before that high-profile killing in February 2020, Nigel had been followed and accosted by locals for driving down that same road. He even encountered an individual that pulled a .45-caliber gun on a herper acquaintance.
Still, to Nigel, none of that matters. “I love these animals so much that I’m willing to go through that just to enjoy their presence, just to spread the word about them, just to share that joy,” he said. “If fear ain’t never stopped us before, we ain’t finna let it stop us now.” Despite Nigel’s immense love for the discipline, he confessed that he wouldn’t commit to it full time. “It’s a tough life. It’s one of those jobs where they’re underpaid and underappreciated,” he said. After talking with some of his colleagues, they had confirmed that assessment. “The conversations I was having with folks today is that their jobs don’t last. Herpetological jobs, first of all, are rare.
Most positions are seasonal, only lasting a few months. Most herpetologists move all around the country because it’s so hard to find jobs in your area.”
Moving around is something Nigel would like to have left in childhood. However, life is never that simple. After five years of raising his family in Akron, Michigan, uncontrollable circumstances forced them to move to Mississippi. After five years, they moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where they stayed for three years until a family death moved them to Kentucky. After three years in Kentucky then three years in Fayetteville, North Carolina, the Smith family finally settled in Savannah. “So, that moving from my childhood made its way into my adult life,” he said. “I’m to the point now where I’m over it. The kids are over it.”
Along with the instability, Nigel noted the “pettiness” within the line of work as another turn off. “I had this misconception of what science was,” he said. “In my brain, all scientists would work together for the betterment of science. That’s not the case.” As it stands, Nigel is content with herping remaining a hobby.
“My love for herpetology is so that if I could, I’d be out five days a week doing it, [and you would] never have to pay me.” Of course, with any passion this intense comes the need for balance.
While herping isn’t solely expensive in terms of money, it can also be expensive in terms of time. Nigel is dedicated to both his own personal happiness and his duties as a father and husband. Even though he himself grew up without a father, he often credits those older neighborhood boys as providing that necessary positive male influence. “The neighborhood guys, older guys, would take us on nature walks. So, they were about 15, 16. We were all little kids, so we didn’t have any dads around,” he said. Something as simple as a teenager taking a 5-year-old on a nature walk made all the difference.
“I have to be sensitive to my family’s needs,” Nigel said. “I have to ask them and watch them. My wife will never say to me, ‘You’re herping too much.’ I just have to watch her and see what she’s comfortable with.” It’s a practice he’s grown more adept at over time, taking into account the principle that just because he can doesn’t always mean he should.
“As much as I contribute to science, in the end, this is a leisurely activity, so I have to balance, because that’s what’s fair to my family, to everybody at the job so I can be there. So, I’m always conscious.”
Just as Nigel’s committed to his personal passion, his family, and work, he is also devoted to his community. After many demanded he start a YouTube channel, on Dec. 13, 2011, he finally did. On Nature Nigel, he posts one-to-three-minute clips of his reptilian and amphibian finds for his audience of 990 subscribers.
Nigel was lucky enough to be able to capture his rarest find for the channel — two pine snakes. According to Benjamin Morrison, IT Senior Manager at University of Georgia College of Public Health, “pine snakes are large, fairly heavy-bodied snakes that average 48-66 inches.” They are found scattered across the Southeast and spend most of their time underground because of their notable burrowing skills. While the species does not have any federal protection, they are listed as threatened in several states; some states even have laws protecting them.
“In Georgia, pine snakes are listed as threatened and have a state conservation rate of S3 (rare to uncommon),” explained Morrison.
This is why Nigel defined the encounter as a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Most herpers will go their entire career without ever finding one, let alone two of these elusive creatures.
While Nigel was in awe recording the female pine snake he had found in the road, out crawled another pine snake, a male, her mate. In the video, you can hear the excited, mystified tremor in his voice as he thanked God. He confessed that he was even near tears. “These snakes, to me, they’re spellbinding.”
Still, for Nigel, it’s deeper than going into the woods for the sole purpose of discovering rare reptiles and amphibians. Before being outdoors that day, Nigel described himself as “low in spirits, tired, aching. Right now, I’m high in spirits.” He hadn’t seen a sing snake while he was out, but he regained his energy, which is how he maintains motivation.
According to Nigel, his endless passion is scant among most professional herpetologists and amateur herpers alike. “They don’t see a snake? They’re bummed out. Not me. I’m just happy to be outside,” he said. From pressure to secure funding to the misleading online posting of notable finds , any number of reasons can contribute to this limited motivation. “Part of it is all we post online or on the forums, all we show you is the days that we find something,” he said. “Inbetween that, there’s a lot of failure.”
On days when the snakes are nowhere to be found, Nigel immerses himself in the fine details of his surroundings. He keeps his eyes and ears open for anything and everything the woods have to offer him. “So, on a day when I’m not seeing a lot of snakes, well, the birds are out, the trees are beautiful, the sky is beautiful. There’s insects out; there’s mammals out. There’s always gonna be something in nature for me to appreciate,” he said. “It’s never a loss.”
The short YouTube videos represent more than entertainment for the herping community. “What it became was a way for me to show people of color that it’s OK to do what I do,” he said. Saying this is an uncommon view for a Black man to have would be putting it lightly. “You know, in our communities that’s crazy. Going out at night with some people you don’t know to look for snakes in the middle of the woods? That’s crazy talk.”
He pointed out how Black people and those from urban backgrounds are taught “that [the forest] isn’t a safe place for us.” He elaborated, “What’s ironic is those from rural areas are taught the same thing about the hood.” When put into simple perspective, rural and urban areas are just environments with their own habitats and order of things. Anyone looking to enter those areas need only learn the rules. More than anything, Nigel wants Black people to know: “We share these public lands, and it’s free and it’s cheap. All you need is some gas and a little fuel to get you out here and you can come enjoy these woods.”
Maybe it’s virtuous. Maybe it’s grassroots activism. Maybe he just wants others to know about the solace he finds in the outdoors. “As a kid growing up in the projects, we had motherf***rs fighting, arguing, drinking, doing drugs, f***ing shooting, all kinds of crazy s*** 24 hours a day, 365 days a year,” he took a deep breath, exhaled, “but I can walk into that tree line and none of that exists. It’s just me and the woods and I’m safe.”
