When I was a kid in Rhode Island, friends had a cabin on a lake and we used to go there for weekends. They had a raft out in the lake and we would dive off the raft and there would be water snakes in the water, I don't even know if they were poisonous or not, and leeches. We never thought anything of it, just lots of fun, until I came out of the water one time with a leech stuck to my leg. I ran like the wind and somehow the leech fell off. Today I wouldn't go in the lake for any amount of money etc. We do have rattlesnakes here, in fact my cousins little girl got bit by a baby rattler and had to go to the hospital, but they treated her and she was o.k. I have never seen any where we live in the city, but yes I am afraid of snakes and I think they belong in the wild.
We have a teenager who rides around here on his bike with a big snake wrapped around his neck. Not fond of seeing that either.
Jackie