About half a dozen garter snakes have turned up in the hospital in Herbert, Saskatchewan, a small town of between 700 and 800 people about 200 km west of Regina, the Canadian Press reports (Regina Leader-Post, Toronto Star). The snakes were using a crawlspace under the hospital as their hibernation site; another hundred were caught in traps underneath the building. Staff have sealed off the crawlspace and will snake-proof the hospital before the fall. I’m delighted to hear that no snake massacres are planned. (Update: CBC News coverage.)