Nearly 100 rattlesnakes pulled from under Santa Rosa home

SANTA ROSA, Calif. - Coming face-to-face with a rattlesnake is probably the last place most people want to be. 

But not Al Wolf. He lives for it.

"I've been called nuts my whole life. My relatives call me nuts," said Wolf, who runs the nonprofit Sonoma County Reptile Rescue.

Last weekend he got the call of his career.

A Santa Rosa woman said she had been seeing a rattlesnake under her home, so Wolf came over to look into the matter. Armed with a grabber and thick gloves, he crawled under the house.

"Within a minute I find a rattlesnake. Ok great. I get it into the bucket and then I see a second rattlesnake. So I get that and put it into the bucket. Then I move another rock and I find a third rattlesnake. Then I see two babies," he said.

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It went on like that for about four hours. Wolf said in the end he removed 92 snakes from under the home, 59 of them were babies. He said that's the most he's seen in one place.

After Wolf made the discovery he told the homeowner what he found.

"She said something odd to me. She said, 'Maybe that's why I haven't had a rodent problem.' I said 'You think?'"

The homeowner wishes to remain anonymous and does not want to disclose the location of her property in northeast Santa Rosa.

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Wolf said the snakes, most about 3 feet long, must have been attracted to that spot because there were a lot of rocks underneath the house.

He said his time in the snake pit was pure joy.

"Damn, one house that many. That's when I started getting happier and happier. I started thinking, 'I wish this happened every day,'" Wolfe said.

Wolf said he released all the snakes into the wild.

"Away from people and private property. It's a beautiful animal. It belongs out there," he said.