True, worry is too strong a word given how rare attacks are. I guess, aware? might be a better choice? Making noise if you're in grizzly country, things like that. Not just carelessly sloshing through swamps if cottonmouths might be about. I think I used worry because I was thinking of another US friend I bonded with because we both keep Springer Spaniels. She casually mentioned once that she had to get her dogs inside because there was a rattlesnake hanging around, and her dogs would have barked and chased it, and she can't risk them getting bitten, naturally. The thought of my dogs being at risk like that just being in my own garden horrified me.
The one thing that scares me though is spiders. I hate that about myself, because I'm not a girly girl who likes to shriek at the sight of a spider. I like snakes, rats, mice; other "creepy crawlies" don't bother me. But there's an innate fear response when I see a spider up close. I've always done what I can to get over that fear. I've held tarantulas, I try to catch and release spiders from my house rather than kill them, I've learned about them and do find them fascinating and respect their role in nature, and that the last thing they want to do is bite me. But I can't quite get rid of that panic reaction when one appears out of nowhere, or I have to get something from the attic or the shed, and know there will be spiders to deal with. If that spider might be a black widow or a brown recluse? No way I could deal with that.
I might have over stated it when I said garters were pricey. Harder to get hold of, and you might have to pay more for a type of garter or morph that is even rarer. They're just not common, I guess? Googled them just now, and only came across albino checkered from a home breeder rather than a reptile store, and Mexican garters. I don't know what effect covid has had on the reptile trade, but I was looking at what garters were available before covid, and didn't find many then either.
Given how easy they are to handle and keep, how kids can handle them without concern, and that you can gather loads of them in the wild in the US, they're surprisingly uncommon here. Maybe they're just not as popular with snake keepers here,and Disney needs to make a movie featuring a talking garter snake or something.
