In places like Brooktrails, this is the time of year when people start looking down a little more carefully. The grass is up. The days are warming. Kids run ahead on the trail. Somebody steps out toward the woodpile. Somebody else starts clearing brush. And after the recent snakebite death in Redwood Valley, a lot of people in Mendocino County are asking the same question: Are there more rattlesnakes out this year, or are people just noticing them more? It may be too early to answer that cleanly. But from interviews with people who work around snakes in Mendocino County and the North Bay — and from field research on how Northern Pacific rattlesnakes actually use the landscape — a few things are starting to come into focus.

The local message, first, is don’t panic. Instead, pay attention. John Delgado, who lives in Brooktrails and has been relocating rattlesnakes in Mendocino County for years, said the first thing people should do is remember to watch for them. “You need to look for them like you look for poison oak,” Delgado said.