Rattlesnakes: Conservation

Summary: Rattlesnakes need love too! Join Kiersten as she talks about what threatens the survival of our scaly friends and how we can help.

 

For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean

 

Show Notes: 

America’s Snake: The Rise and Fall of the Timber Rattlesnake by Ted Levin

“Snake Fungal Disease” Cornell Wildlife Health Lab, https://cwhi.vet.cornell.edu

IUCN Red List, https://www.iucnredlist.org

“Timber Rattlesnakes” Pennsylvania DCNR, https://www.dcnr.pa.gov

“Eastern Massasauga rattlesnake recovery plan” U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, https://www.fws.gov

“Rattlesnake Roundup: a Texas tradition runs into criticism” by Evan Garcia, Reuters March 22, 2023. https://www.reuters.com

 Conservation Societies: 

The Orianne Society: https://www.oriannesociety.org

The Rattlesnake Conservancy: https://www.savethebuzztails.org

 

Music written and performed by Katherine Camp

Transcript 

(Piano music plays)

Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.

(Piano music stops)

Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. 

This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it.

This episode concludes rattlesnakes. Those of you who have been enjoying this journey with can probably guess which episode this will be. I do have a bit of a pattern, but talking about conserving these wonderful animals for future generations is always the tenth thing I like about them. Welcome to rattlesnake conservation.

Some of you may be thinking, are rattlesnakes in need of conservation? Does a venomous animal really need our help to survive? The answer to both of these questions is a resounding yes. Across their native range their numbers have been steadily declining for generations. And, as always, we are the main cause of their problems. Let’s take a look at the challenges they are battling, how we’re helping, and how we can continue to help.

One of the major challenges rattlesnakes are facing is loss of appropriate habitat, especially along the east coat of North America. The Eastern Massasauga rattlesnake is found in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Ontario, Canada. Sounds like a lot a places right? Researchers have confirmed that less than half of their historical populations exist today, and most of that is found in Michigan and Ontario. That excludes eight states out of their original range. Now they are still found in those states but in such low numbers, they are considered rare. 

The eastern massasauga relies on wetland habitat and the adjacent uplands. Wetlands across the continent are a threatened habitat. Steps have been taken to protect the wetland habitat of the eastern massasauga and the snake itself. In 2016, the US Fish and Wildlife Service listed the eastern massasauga rattlesnake as an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act. This gave more leverage to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources for protection of the wetland habitat that the massasauga relies upon. For those of you that are still on the fence about protecting rattlesnakes, think about all the other animals that rely on wetlands to survive, you probably like at least, one of those. Not to mention the fact that wetlands are an important  step in keeping water clean and drinkable, that includes the water that we drink.

Timber rattlesnakes are also suffering from habitat loss. They are particularly reliant on habitat that has a combination of trees and rocky steppe areas. This habitat is often lost to urban and suburban sprawl. The timber rattlesnakes that live in northeastern areas rely on the rocky outcroppings as sunning areas and hibernation spots. The structure of the rocky developments provide excellent hidden holes for populations that live north enough to need hibernaculums to survive the winter. Pennsylvania, one of the states with a rapidly declining population of timber rattlesnakes, has implemented protections in state parks that contain the chosen habitat of the timber rattlesnake. There are fifteen areas in Pennsylvania state parks that you are not allowed to harm timber rattlesnakes or destroy or disturb their sunning and hibernation spots. 

I love the fact that we’re trying to get ahead of the extinction of these amazing animals. There are forty rattlesnakes listed on the IUCN’s Red List, almost all are in the crotalus family, and most of them are classified as Least Concern. A sigh of relief, right? Wrong, the IUCN Red List looks at the global populations of species, not regional populations. The good news is that the rattlesnakes are surviving across global areas, but it’s the regional areas that we must be concerned about. Why, you ask? I love my inquisitive listeners!  

Regionally, rattlesnakes are key species in the balance of ecosystems. They eat small mammals, such as rodents and shrews, that can easily get out of control when there are no predators to keep their populations in check. Too many of these can mean too many fleas and ticks that spread diseases across the animal kingdom, included to humans. So making sure that we have rattlesnakes in their historical territories is an important endeavor. 

Disease is also something that hibernating rattlesnakes are battling. Over the last several years researchers have found snakes waking from hibernation covered in ulcers. These snakes have been affected by what researchers call Snake Fungal Disease or SFD. Ophidiomyces ophiodiicola is the fungus responsible for Snake Fungal Disease. It was first identified in 2006 in a population of Timber rattlesnakes from New Hampshire. Symptoms of SFD are facial swelling, eye infections, pneumonia, and external ulcerations. 

It is thought that the fungus resides in the soil and snakes are picking it up in dens, but there are reports of captive snakes becoming infected. Temperature may play a factor in transmission. Snakes that hibernate in warmer temperatures seem to be more susceptible that cooler temperatures. With globally warming temperatures, this should give us cause for concern.  

Treatment with fungicides has been attempted with snakes brought into captivity from the wild, but very little success has been made.

One last obstacle to survival that rattlesnakes are still facing, even in our educated society, is rattlesnake roundups. This was a hard portion for me to write because I kept getting so angry as I wrote this section of this episode. Rattlesnake roundups are week-long events where people go out and capture rattlesnakes in the wild. They bring them back to a central location and kill them. Sweetwater, Texas still holds one of the largest rattlesnake roundups in the United States and it is barbaric. The rattlesnake hunters pour gasoline in the backs of the dens where the rattlesnakes are resting during the cooler months of the year and wait for them to escape the fumes of the gasoline. When they emerge, the hunters scoop them up and carry them away to their deaths. They harvest thousands of pounds of rattlesnakes every year. They milk their venom then skin them to use as leather goods. Prizes are given to the hunters that bring in the highest poundage of rattlesnake and the longest rattlesnakes. It’s archaic and despicable. 

This activity destroys thousands of rattlesnakes that have done nothing to deserve destruction. These are snakes that are in the wild bothering no humans. They are living their rattlesnake lives, helping keep nature in balance. 

Some of you may ask, why I this a problem? I mean the IUCN says they’re not in danger of extinction, so why worry. Remember the reproduction episode. Female rattlesnakes only give birth every three or four years. This keeps them from becoming overpopulated but it also means when we interfere, by culling thousands of them every year, they are in danger of disappearing. 

So, what can you do to help our rattled friends? You can support organizations that are protecting vital habitat like your local natural resources agencies and organizations like The Rattlesnake Conservancy and The Orianne Society. If you’re a hiker that enjoys trekking into rattlesnake habitat across the country, disinfect your hiking gear between adventures with a bit of detergent and a bleach solution spray. We don’t want to transfer fungus that might cause Snake Fungal Disease. Refuse to buy products made from wild caught rattlesnake and do not purchase tickets to attend rattlesnake roundups. The best thing you can do to save our rattlesnake friends is to educate your friends and family. The more people that know the truth about rattlesnakes, the better their futures will be.

Thanks for traveling the road of the rattlesnake with me. I have enjoyed all ten episodes of this series, and talking conservation is my tenth favorite thing about rattlesnakes.

 

If you're enjoying this podcast please recommend me to friends and family and take a moment to give me a rating on whatever platform your listening. It will help me reach more listeners and give the animals I talk about an even better chance at change. 

 

Join me in two weeks for the first episode in another series about an unknown creature..  

 

(Piano Music plays) 

This has been an episode of Ten Things I like About with Kiersten and Company. Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp, piano extraordinaire.