Texas: Paul Rodriguez knew something wasn’t right when the bicycle tire he tried to pick up started slithering.

Things just got more bizarre from there.

DRC/Gary Payne

Paul Rodriguez reached down to pick up what he thought was a tire, but it turned out to be a cottonmouth snake that slithered away at South Lakes Park on Sunday. Rodriguez, shown Tuesday, then found a whole nest of snakes near a wooden dam close to where people fish.

Rodriguez, who works for a Denton towing company, was walking Sunday afternoon at South Lakes Park off Teasley Lane when he noticed the “tire” floating in a pond.

“I reached down to pick it up and it slithered,” he said. “It was a water moccasin.”

The snake fled across the pond close to where a man and two boys were fishing.

Worried, Rodriguez called city animal control officers.

They arrived at the scene with two police officers and discovered other snakes they determined were venomous water moccasins, also called cottonmouths.

Rodriguez said he spotted between 10 and 20 babies and multiple adult snakes near a pile of debris at the edge of the pond, where they appeared to be nesting. The full-grown snakes were 3 to 4 feet long, he said.

“These suckers are huge,” Rodriguez said.

Officers considered capturing and relocating the snakes but decided that was unsafe after consulting with animal servi­ces workers, said police spokesman Jim Bryan.

“It’s likely if they caught one, they would get bit by another one,” he said.

So one of the officers grabbed a shotgun and shot and killed seven snakes — all that could be found, Bryan said.

Police and city officials couldn’t recall a similar case.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

A water moccasin, also called a cottonmouth, Agkistrodon piscivorus, is shown with its mouth open.

“I don’t remember that we have gone out and shot a snake before,” Bryan said. “So yeah, it’s unusual.”

Emerson Vorel, the city’s interim parks director, agreed.

“We see snakes in the water all the time,” Vorel said. “I’m not aware of ever having seen this many snakes in one place at the same time.”

Told of the incident, one expert cast doubt on the type of snake that was found.

Dr. Jonathan Campbell of the University of Texas at Arlington, who specializes in the study of reptiles and amphibians, said he would be “absolutely amazed” if the snakes were water moccasins.

“This time of year it’s possible you might find a mating pair here and there, but you’re not going to find a large concentration of them,” Campbell said.

Campbell suspects they were nonpoisonous water snakes, which are far more abundant in North Texas and commonly misidentified as cottonmouths.

Even if they were water moccasins, Campbell said, they probably could have been captured safely.

“Unless you actually provoke a particular individual [snake], water moccasins are not particularly aggressive,” he said.

Still, Campbell said he understands why authorities did what they did.

“I hate to see animals killed really for no reason,” Campbell said. But “if it’s a public park and you’ve got people around you … they [snakes] do have to be removed.”

Cottonmouths are usually dark colored and stout-bodied, about 30 to 42 inches long, according to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. The inside of the snake’s mouth is white, hence its name. The snakes prefer to live around shallow bodies of water.

Rodriguez said he’s sure he identified the snakes correctly. They were aggressive and could have endangered children playing at the park, he said.

“Thank God nothing happened, but it could have very easily happened,” he said.

Since the park is a nature area, residents should expect to see wildlife, Vorel said. But the magnitude of the snake problem likely will spur officials to post warning signs, he said.

“We’ll do what we can to keep the public notified and keep them safe,” Vorel said.

As the officer shot at the snakes, Rodriguez said one snake came dangerously close to his leg. He called the ordeal unforgettable.

“You’ll never forget that feeling once you reach down and it moves on you,” he said.

LOWELL BROWN can be reached at 940-566-6882. His e-mail address is lmbrown@dentonrc.com .