Zoology outreach specialist James Harding. Photo by Alissa Harding.

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EAST LANSING, Mich. — In the “man versus wild” encounters of summer, people today seem less likely to overreact with violence, if calls to Michigan State University’s “Critter Guy” are an indication. More folks just want to learn about the snakes and other creepy crawlers they stumble upon, James Harding reports, and that’s a good sign.

“In the last few years, there’s been a slow change in attitude,” said Harding, a zoology instructor and outreach specialist. “People are more willing on more occasions to ‘live and let live’ as long as they don’t think that something is deadly and will harm their kids or their dog.”

Harding has anchored the MSU Museum’s “Wildlife and Natural Science Q-line” Web page for the last decade, answering phone calls and e-mails about the creatures people find in their backyards and beyond. The service focuses on the fauna of Michigan, but Harding regularly takes queries from other states and from as far away as Sri Lanka.

The Web page offers guides to identify the snakes and turtles of Michigan, herpetologist Harding’s specialty, plus other information on how to deal with bats, spiders and the like.

He gets an average of about eight e-mails a day, plus random phone calls, mostly from people wanting to know whether a critter is dangerous and how to get it out of their basement. He knows and loves his amphibians and reptiles, but takes a practical view about wildlife’s compatibility with humans.

“I’m the first to agree that a Massasauga rattlesnake doesn’t belong in the backyard of a day care center,” he said. The eastern Massasauga rattler is the only venomous snake species in Michigan, he said, and the remaining 17 species are considered harmless – although any creature may bite or scratch someone who tries to handle it.

In the last couple years, Harding has been pleased to see a more tolerant attitude among humans toward our animal kingdom cousins, possibly indicating that people are becoming more informed about wildlife and its place in nature.

Numerous studies show a wide gap in the scientific literacy of the general public and the scientific community in general, including a study released last week by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press with the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

In that study, fewer Americans (27 percent) said they think scientific advances are one of the nation’s most important achievements compared to 10 years ago (47 percent), among other findings. It could be, however, that years of environmental consciousness-raising coupled with better developed information channels such as the Internet make people more likely to consider their actions when they encounter wildlife.

“I figure if you can reach one person, get one person to put down the hoe and not chop a snake into pieces, it might spread to their neighbor, their children or their family,” Harding said.

Harding was a guest on the July 13 “On Point” program produced by WBUR in Boston and broadcast on public radio stations around the country. He appeared on the program with nature writer Constance Casey, who writes a column on “revolting creatures” for Slate. Harding shared his knowledge of snapping turtles with Casey – who has written on vultures, slugs and other unpopular species – to help her prepare a column on those hard-to-love hard-shell inhabitants.

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