After the buying of a whopping 24,262 pounds of snakes at the World's Largest Rattlesnake Roundup last weekend in Sweetwater, some worry that more than 75,000 pounds of snakes are leftover with little to no buyers.

Pat McLaughlin, president of the Brownwood Jaycees, said this excess presents an unfortunate inconvenience to hunters and a dangerous problem, as the 52nd Lone Star Fair and Expo this weekend will not have its usual rattlesnake roundup for vendors and hunters due to the excess of snakes.

"Sweetwater was paying $10 a pound, now it's going to go down to $1 (to) 50 cents a pound because too many snakes are on the market, so hunters keep searching for a buyer, kill the snakes or release them back into wild, which will be a bigger problem next year," he said.

"You're going to see a lot more livestock getting bit by rattlesnakes just because there's too many snakes out there. And all these hunters, since there's nowhere to go with them. And even if they process them, they still have nowhere to go with the hide, the heads, the meat, anything like that."

McLaughlin said it is an issue that extends beyond the Big Country.

"It's already a problem throughout the state," he said. "I've received within the week about 85 calls, at minimum, about buying rattlesnakes. This year it's been insane calls about selling rattlesnakes. You've got way too many sellers and not enough buyers."

Merkel City Manager Steve Campbell, who's been a snake hunter since 1978, said he waited for hours in line last weekend to sell his snakes.

"I waited in line nine and half hours to unload my snakes (last) Friday," he said. "And the rumors from the front of the line to the back of the line between the Jaycees and the last ones in the gate was there's going to be so many they'll never buy any snakes."

Despite the record-breaking roundup and consequences of more snakes in the wild, Campbell thinks it's unwise to the eradicate rattlesnake population.

"No one ever dreamed we would see numbers like that," Campbell said. "No one ever speculated on having 12 tons of snakes."

His guess is that the $10 a pound price is why there were so many snakes brought in, with numerous people supposedly with 100 to 200 pounds.