But North East Wildlife Control snake catcher Jeff Davies warned the "kill them all" response towards unwanted reptiles on north-east Victorian properties was on the rise this summer.
“It rears up it's head periodically, but it's been too common a problem to ignore,” Mr Davies said.
He said he was outraged to witness people on social media joking about pictures of snakes in back gardens in Mansfield and Wangaratta.
“I saw people saying a shovel or a 12 gauge shotgun will fix it,” he said.
Mr Davies urged the community to reconsider illegally harming native wildlife instead of ringing up a registered professional.
“As humans, we can't keep going on killing everything out of ignorance, stupidity and fear,” he said.
“We have to take responsibility for our actions and think about what the effect might be.”
Mr Davies said taking to an animal with a shovel was not only bad news for the snake but was risky for the handler, too.
“To think solving the problem is grabbing a snake and chopping it in half is extremely dangerous,” he said.
“People go to pick up the two halves and its biting end is still active.
“I've seen people get bitten.”
Mr Davies said the illegal practice of putting bird netting down to trap snakes in garden beds also needed to stop.
“The snake gets caught and dies a slow and painful death,” he said.
“Sometimes it hasn't been badly injured but there are times the vet has to risk life and limb treating it, otherwise it ends up being euthanised.
“And it's not just the snakes they're going to catch, it's blue tongues, birds, everything . . . it's just not on.”
Mr Davies said there was a much simpler response to finding unwanted wildlife in your backyard this season.
“Call the wildlife controller, it's what we do,” he said.
Mr Davies said under wildlife registrations, the penalties for laying out bird netting to trap wildlife or deliberately chop a snake in half were much higher fines than the cost of getting a snake catcher out.
“It gets to us as wildlife professionals to have to deal with this over and over again,” he said.
“No snake catcher charges in a rescue situation.
“If financially strapped, quite a lot of us will pick the animal up and relocate it for free if absolutely necessary . . . it's far better than seeing wildlife killed.”
Mr Davies said the one positive for reptiles this summer was a quieter season thanks to larger snakes returning to their natural habitat with the rain.
“Previous seasons we were catching big, old snakes brought out by drought,” he said.
“This year we're back to seeing more common size snakes, so that's been really great.”
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