Georgia family gets 'snake' show on Animal Planet

But Jason Clark cautions their jobs usually aren’t about helping out the people who are afraid of the snakes, it’s about rescuing the reptiles.

Clark, his wife and father are all licensed to do so-called “nuisance” wildlife control. They help officials capture snakes, alligators and other reptiles, and often take them in at their Southeastern Reptile Rescue operation in Griffin.

The family works all over the state, but most of the time, they try and coax a scared homeowner with a garden snake in the basement to letting it just slither away.

“If we have one inside the residence that may be venomous, those are the ones we go on,” Clark said. “But some of the calls we get, even though the person may be terrified, they don’t really need us to come out.”

The Clark family also gets calls from law enforcement and the Georgia Department of Natural Resources asking for help. Clark aided Georgia State Patrol and DNR last October in removing a 6-foot-9 alligator from I-85 in Coweta County.

A former Clayton County Police officer, Clark also recalls going into a home with the police and finding an alligator in the bedroom.

Clark said he considers what they do on “SnakesKin” to be more of a “stage performance” because the camera crews are following them around on the job.

“Nobody really sees what we’re doing at the house … cleaning cages and all that,” Clark said.

That being said, the crew, which started out as three and grew to six, filmed the family eating, sleeping and doing other odds and ends.

“The show is not planned. When the phone rings, we get the phone call on the air, and we have to jump in the car and do what we need to do,” Clark said.