Mid-Atlantic Gardening: Your Neck of the Woods 2015 Part 4, 1 by Ric_of_MAF

Ric_of_MAF wrote:
I'd rather know a snake and that it is sleeping on the other side of a wall than be subject to these:
"Many rodent species can be infected by the plague, and rodent species vary in their ability to tolerate the plague. For instance, mice and voles don’t tend to die when infected with the plague,"
and from the CDC: Diseases for which rodents are both directly and indirectly vectors.
Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome expanded
Hemorrhagic Fever with Renal Syndrome collapsed
Lassa Fever collapsed
Leptospirosis collapsed
Lymphocytic Chorio-meningitis (LCM) collapsed
Omsk Hemorrhagic Fever collapsed
Plague collapsed
Rat-Bite Fever collapsed
Salmonellosis collapsed
South American Arenaviruses (Argentine hemorrhagic fever, Bolivian hemorrhagic fever, Sabiá-associated hemorrhagic fever, Venezuelan hemorrhagic fever) collapsed
Tularemia
Babesiosis expanded
Colorado Tick Fever collapsed
Cutaneous Leishmaniasis collapsed
Human Granulocytic Anaplasmosis collapsed
La Crosse Encephalitis collapsed
Lyme Disease collapsed
Murine Typhus collapsed
Omsk Hemorrhagic Fever collapsed
Powassan Virus collapsed
Scrub Typhus collapsed
Rickettsialpox collapsed
Relapsing Fever collapsed
Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever collapsed
Sylvatic Typhus collapsed
West Nile Virus

So we know a snake is a snake, know thy enemy (derived from Sun Tzu's The Art of War) but a cute little furry rodent could be face of painful death in many forms.