Some people are trying to fight snakes with snakes. People in one neighborhood nearby, Druid Hills, which backs up to the Fernbank Forest, imported and released a bunch of black rat snakes into their yards. They hope the snakes will crowd out the copperheads and compete with them for the same food sources. The other day I attended my first-ever snake release party—complete with balloons on the mailbox, a local snake expert, and a kingsnake in a box—right in my own neighborhood after a small child was bitten on the foot while chasing fireflies.

This cannot be normal, can it?

To find out, I reached out to David A. Steen, a wildlife ecologist and research fellow at the Alabama Natural Heritage Program at Auburn University. (And a blogger and occasional writer for Slate.)

“Wow—I don't even know where to start with what's wrong with that,” he said of the snake release efforts.