City of Opp Now Paying Snake Bounty?

The City of Opp's Rattlesnake Rodeo website doesn't have much useful information on the eastern diamondback rattlesnake (it doesn't even mention the species by name), but it does offer sound advice regarding what to do if you encounter one: "avoid contact with rattlesnakes by remaining observant and not approaching the animals." Despite that, the city has just announced a new policy of paying the general public a bounty of $8 per foot for eastern diamondback rattlesnakes over 2 feet long, or $100 for any snake over 5 feet long. Mayor H.D. Edgar is quoted saying, "We've been paying our hunters in the past, but a lot of them have quit. We've got to have a new source of snakes for the snake shows, so everyone thought this would be a good idea to get the public involved once again." I wonder if "everyone" included the city attorney, because it would seem that the city is setting itself up for a huge liability exposure. And the city needs rattlesnakes for what, exactly? Two things only: to be put on display and to be "raced." The snakes are actually playing less and less of a role in this popular annual event. Of course they don't need wild-caught rattlesnakes to have a buck-dance contest, a car race, or a concert. A few captive snakes could be brought out each year for display and attendance would not suffer.

For decades the standard snake hunting technique was to introduce gasoline fumes into gopher tortoise burrows to drive out rattlesnakes. This effective but extremely harmful practice is now illegal in Alabama. Rodeo promoters claim this is no longer done, but they don't say how they police themselves. And now the city has opened the field up to anyone, without cautioning against gassing burrows. It's going to be happening, no question.

A growing number of people are calling for this event to change. At the Rodeo, children are seeing large numbers of a declining species of native wildlife being rounded up, mistreated, and slaughtered (behind the scenes; they used to chop off heads in public but no longer) for no reason other than it's a snake. This is not how to instill a respect for nature in the next generation. Other towns that had snake rodeos, such as Fitzgerald, Georgia and San Antonio Florida, have successfully shifted the emphasis of their event away from the wild snake roundup. At the San Antonio Rattlesnake Festival, education presentations feature snakes that are not abused or harassed, the crowd is entertained, and children go home with a new respect for wildlife. That event draws 30,000 visitors and raises thousands of dollars for local nonprofits.

Opp City Planner Don Childre has long defended the wild snake hunt by claiming the snakes are still as common as ever. His credibility went out the window, however, when he was quoted in yesterday's Opp News falsely stating that rattlesnakes bear young several times a year for an annual average of 100 young! In fact, diamondbacks bear young once in the late summer, with an average litter of about a dozen young. Then he falsely equates the regulated harvest of game species to the unregulated take of rattlesnakes: "We hunt [gray squirrels and whitetail deer] and no one says anything, but they make a lot of noise about snake hunting for some reason." See what he did there? Using that logic, I suppose he'd say we can also have unregulated take on sea turtles, because one female can produce over 500 hatchlings in a year.

Eastern diamondbacks are declining primarily due to habitat degradation, not snake roundups, but the latter is not helping. Their environmental impact has been documented by Dr. D. Bruce Means of Florida State University and the Coastal Plains Institute here (PDF).

It's either time for the State of Alabama to step up and regulate the take of rattlesnakes for such purposes, or for Opp to change its annual event to a wildlife appreciation festival. By doing so they would continue to bring in revenue to the local economy while educating young people and conserving the diversity of nature that we are so fortunate to have in this part of the country.

"I Smell Rattlesnake"

Politicians love the Opp Rattlesnake Rodeo. I first saw Richard Shelby 24 years ago right there at Channel-Lee Stadium when he was campaigning for the Senate. This year gubernatorial candidate Robert Bentley brought a camera crew, which is the only reason I'm posting this. It's a glimpse into what happens there.



It's time the folks at Opp moved beyond this. There's no reason they can't have an annual rattlesnake-themed festival, but sensational exploitation is no way to instill a conservation ethic in youngsters.

A Week to Remember

Breeding male Notropis chrosomus, Monroe County, AL

There's been a colorful creature theme this week. In the past seven days I've seen red-cockaded woodpeckers in Coosa County, Red Hills salamanders in Monroe County, and a southern red salamander in Covington County. I was present for the release of 18 eastern indigo snakes in Conecuh National Forest. I watched male rainbow shiners in peak breeding colors in Monroe County, at the exact spot I featured in July 2009.

Two events made the week particularly memorable. The first was the reintroduction of the indigo snakes last Wednesday. You can read more on that here and Dave Steen's account is here. Gator Pond is only a couple of miles from the release site, and it's exciting to think that someday we might actually see an indigo snake there. Good luck to Jimmy Stiles as he tries to radio-track 18 snakes that potentially could range for miles!

Jimmy Stiles

It's hard to top indigo snakes, but Friday was the 50th anniversary of the June 18 1960 discovery of the Red Hills salamander, Phaeognathus hubrichti. Several months ago JJ Apodaca and I started making plans to do something to commemorate the occasion, and we envisioned maybe seven or eight die-hard Phaeognathus biologists making the effort to show up. To our astonishment and delight, a group of about 40 people turned out for the event, and following a lunch and indoor social nearby, we all piled into vehicles and drove through a severe thunderstorm to the type locality off Highway 31 near McKenzie. As the rain subsided, we toasted the likes of Leslie Hubricht, Richard Highton, Barry Valentine, and Ronald Brandon. Two of Valentine's students who participated in the 1963 "rediscovery" of the species, Steve Tilley and David Dennis, were there, as were Auburn's Bob Mount (my old major prof) and his students Ralph "PeeWee" Jordan and Terry Schwaner, both of whom did extensive field work and research on the salamander in the late 1960s. Some of these guys came from afar: Tilley from Massachusetts, Dennis from Florida, Jordan from Tennessee, and Schwaner from Ohio. The list of other attendees possessing what we called "Phaeognathus bona fides" is long: Ken Dodd, who worked on the original 1976 listing of the species and did extensive surveys in the late 80s, drove up from Gainesville, Florida. Bruce Means, who documented the reproductive biology of the species, came up from Tallahassee with his wife Kathy. Jodie Smithem, USFWS biologist from Daphne who is writing the revised Recovery Plan, was there. UA professor Jim Parham, who co-authored a skeletochronology paper on Phaeognathus with Dodd, came from Tuscaloosa with his wife Sarah. AU professor Craig Guyer and his former Phaeognathus-studying master's student, Kristen Bakkegaard, now a professor at Samford, were there. Leslie Rissler, JJ's major professor at UA, came with her two youngsters Aiden and Amelia, much to the delight of our seven-year-old, Ava (they were The Three A's). My wife Karan, who's done her share of Phaeognathus catching for an AU study, skillfully handled the BBQ catering and other logistics, and was key to the whole thing going smoothly. Roger Reid produced his very first APT Discovering Alabama program on the Red Hills salamander about 15 years ago (Phaeognathus launched his TV career, we joked), and he was there with his crew to get some supplementary footage. The Nature Conservancy has recently acquired over 4,000 acres of Red Hills lands for Forever Wild, and we were delighted to have Chris Oberholster and Bill Finch of TNC there. Jimmy Bullock and Sandy Hindman of RMS, formerly of Union Camp and International Paper, respectively, were there, and these guys were instrumental in a couple of major Phaeognathus Habitat Conservation Plans in the 1990s. RMS currently owns the type locality and we greatly appreciated their letting us on the property.

We missed a few folks, like Jim Godwin and Margaret Gunzburger, both of whom have considerable "Phaeognathus bona fides" but also had family obligations prohibiting them from making it. Here's Margaret's. Many of us went to Gator Pond afterward and the tale-telling lasted late into the night. Here was the scene the next morning:

Gator Pond Cabin, 19 June 2010. Left to right:
David Dennis, Kathy Steinheimer, Steve Tilley, Ken Dodd, Bruce Means, JJ Apodaca

Great memories were made around here this past week, but there's more to come. It's getting late in the afternoon this Father's Day, and I've promised Ava that Daddy is going to take her to Gator Pond for some swimming, fishing, and listening to frogs. We might even stay in the cabin tonight now that all's quiet. Definitely time to get away from computers for a while...

If it'd been a snake...

I like timber rattlesnakes. As a zoology grad student I had one that had been "fixed" so it couldn't inject venom, but it had its fangs, and could have certainly delivered a painful bite. But it had a nice enough personality, and you could handle it like a corn snake. I'm convinced that many timber rattlers I've encountered in the woods could be gently picked up barehanded, assuming of course that they haven't first coiled in alarm/defense. But I would never try it, of course.

This amazing video shows a young black bear nearly stepping on a very large timber rattlesnake, oblivious to the danger at its feet. Only when retracing its steps does it finally see the snake, and its reaction is much the same as mine would be! It makes me wonder how often I've come close to snakes like this one without ever knowing it. The thought might be unsettling, but on the other hand, the snakes' behavior is somewhat comforting.



The people who made this video had been watching the snake for several days. From the context of other videos, it appears to be near a corn feeder that has attracted a variety of wildlife, including rodents. Go to their website for further webcam documentation of this impressive but unlucky snake striking at and missing an adult bear (self defense) plus a gray squirrel and a chipmunk (feeding attempts).

Note: If you're ever around such a grain feeder that's in use during the warm season, watch your step--they really are snake magnets, and don't count on every rattlesnake being so magnanimous!

Dave Steen's Cool Blog

How have I missed this one? Dave Steen, an Auburn Ph.D. candidate, has started a fantastic blog over at Living Alongside Wildlife. It's a series of essays on wildlife (mostly herps) that are also appearing in some local newspapers. Dave says,

My goals for this blog are to A) help others appreciate and better know wildlife species that tend to have a bad reputation and B) make my research accessible to a general audience.

He's had it running since last month, but I just discovered it this morning. Whoever reads this should definitely check it out. I thoroughly enjoyed the siren-hunting adventure at what must be the legendary (among Alabama herpetologists) Hutto Pond. I'm in a motel in the Tennessee Valley this morning and have no time to read more, but what I've seen is impressive. Looking forward to reading the whole thing, and to future posts.

Great job, Dave!

Lifting Tin

Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake

Black Racer

Ten minutes ago I walked out into the brisk morning air (38 degrees at 9:30 AM) and lifted a couple of pieces of roofing tin I put out for snakes. Cold as it is, the sun was out, and a couple of snakes had emerged from the underground network of rodent burrows to enjoy the warmth. The black racer was no surprise, but it was a real treat to see this young-of-the-year eastern diamondback rattlesnake. The same piece of tin with the racer had both a coachwhip and a corn snake under it last week. Late winter is a good time to be a herpetologist in the South.

Pal Meadow and Spread Natters

A couple of rather unique southern malapropisms I've run across, in writing, no less. Used together in a sentence, I suppose you'd say, "That patch of Pal Meadow is might snaky-lookin'; I bet it's plumb full of Spread Natters."

Another "giant" snake

This timber rattlesnake photo is making the rounds, with the following text:

Snake killed on Golf Course in Harlan , Ky.

This is a timber rattler killed last week-end. It is by far the biggest rattlesnake I have ever seen. Although diamond back rattlers get this big and maybe even bigger, I did not know timber rattlers reached that size. I have not talked to Ollie about how many rattles it had or it's actual size and length was, but since he is about 5'9' the snake appears to be at least 8 feet long if not longer, and is bigger around than his arms. He killed the snake with a 2 iron on number 8 at Oakview while looking for his golf ball. The man holding the snake is greens keeper.

Please. I've been over this before. Twice. The guy is holding the snake out several feet closer to the camera than he's standing. The snake is large, but not exceptional. It's at most 4.5 feet long, which is where mature timber rattlers typically top out.

Last week my friend John Jensen sent an excellent letter to the Monticello (Georgia) News, writing in response to an unfortunate and sensational "snake bites man" story first published in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (in which John is quoted). He tells me the AJC erred in calling the snake an eastern diamondback; it was in fact a timber rattler. John's letter was printed in its entirety:

Dear Monticello News:

In last week’s paper it was reported that upon seeing a rattlesnake simply crossing a road, a local gentleman ran over the snake several times, then stopped the tractor on top of it, and because the snake was still alive (although facing certain eventual death from being crushed) used deer antlers to further dispatch it. While stabbing at the snake with the antlers, the snake struck the man, who then had to be medevaced to Macon and treated with antivenin. Let me preface everything further by saying that I am sincerely pleased to learn that this gentleman is back home recuperating and should make a full recovery. The reality, though, is that he is extremely lucky to be alive.

A reasonable person knows not to repair a firearm while it is loaded and the barrel pointing at him, or not to throw rocks at a hornet’s nest. But when it comes to venomous snakes, many otherwise reasonable persons often act in needless, careless, and hysterical ways. Statistics from the CDC indicate that over 80% of all snakebites are to the hands or arms – a clear indication that most of the victims were messing with or handling the snakes and the bites were not accidental. Truly accidental snakebites (snakes not seen prior to envenomation) would normally be to the feet and legs, and are relatively rare events. What is the best way to avoid being bitten (and possibly dying) by a clearly visible snake? Walk away from it! Sure, if a venomous snake takes up residence around a home, playground, or the like, it makes clear sense to safely remove or dispatch it. But when a snake is seen crossing a road or out in the woods well away from residences, there is no need to mess with it. Snakes just want to be left alone and definitely don’t want to waste the precious venom they need for subduing rodent prey.

Besides, why are so many folks so paranoid of venomous snakes that they would go out of their way to kill them? Relative to other dangers in this world that aren’t prevented by eliminating the producers of them, venomous snakes are not that significant of a threat to humans. Many more people die each year from dog attacks, trees falling on them, or even slipping in the shower, yet no reasonable person would promote culling out every dog they see or every tree in the forest “just in case.” Nor would any sane person avoid bathing for fear of busting their head open. In the entire United States, an average of six people annually die from snakebites, while an average of less than one person per year dies in Georgia, and these fatalities are primarily to those who do not seek medical treatment. As sad of a commentary as it is, far more people are killed by their fellow man than are by snakes. An average of 45 people each day are murdered in this country, almost two per day in Georgia alone. All things considered, venomous snakes are really not that much of a threat, and nonvenomous snakes, by the way, are no threat at all to humans.

One more comment to make. The caption in the newspaper was titled “Mean Rattlesnake.” What animal, human beings included, while harmlessly crossing a road, would not fight back after it has been run over by a tractor repeatedly, then parked upon, and then stabbed at with the tines of a deer antler? I hardly think that qualifies as being “mean.”

John Jensen

Ophidiophobia, Part 3

Georgia youngsters posing with an eastern indigo snake they killed, mid-1990s

I'm so tired of the media running sensational photos of people proudly holding up snakes they killed. Huntsville Times outdoor writer Alan Clemons posted on his blog today a photo of a guy holding a dead timber rattlesnake. It's the typical dead snake picture: held out toward the camera so it looks much bigger than it really is. Clemons defends the killing of this animal that was posing no imminent danger, saying, "I don't blame [the killer]. I'd have put the sucker out of business, too." Ironically, Clemons wrote a mostly pro-snake column in yesterday's paper, saying, "I've never figured out why people kill snakes just to kill them," and "...if I'm in the woods and run across a rattler, copperhead or moccasin, I'll give it wide berth as often as possible because I'm on his turf." I applaud him for saying that, but today's blog entry seems inconsistent with that stance. Clemons says he will have another post on snakes Thursday, and hopefully that will clarify things a bit.

This seems as good a place as any to mention that several years ago I wrote this article, "Speaking Up for Snakes," for the magazine of the Alabama Wildlife Federation.

Nine-foot Kingsnake?

If it's on the Internet, it must be true, right? That's me holding the snake. Click image for better resolution.

Ophidiophobia, Part 2

This guy and I clearly live in different worlds. (I put out roofing tin on my land to attract snakes.) Click the image for a full-sized view.

Exploiting Ophidiophobia

I learned today that a professional exterminator in Birmingham, Alabama is marketing a snake trap. Nothing necessarily wrong with that; I used a very different sort of trap to catch and relocate several copperheads from my yard last summer (I have a five-year old daughter who likes to run barefoot). But it's both the way this trap works and the way it's marketed that raises my hackles. It's a glue trap, which is often used for mice and typically results in a miserable death by either dehydration or suffocation. Sure, you can release the animal by drenching the glue with vegetable oil, and on this they rest their claim of "humane," but how often does this actually happen? Several animal rights groups are opposed to glue traps, and although I disagree with many of their positions, cruelty is cruelty. The website says the trap "also helps control lizards," among other things. Now, why would anybody need or want to control lizards? And what about other non-target animals, like chipmunks, toads, baby 'possums, etc.? I cringe to think of a little green anole or tree frog hopelessly gummed up in that goo. But inventor Buddy Hawkins thinks God gave him the idea, so, well, there you go.

I'm a herpetologist, and I know better and more effective ways to catch (and humanely release) snakes, like those copperheads in my yard. Using funnel box traps made from plywood and hardware cloth, we caught over 400 snakes in a recent 2-year survey of the reptiles and amphibians of Conecuh National Forest (pdf here).

Several of the snake trap website's testimonials are disturbing. Here's one:

We left for vacation and when we returned five days later the snake was caught. I have attached pictures to see if you can identify what type of snake it was.

It was a gray rat snake. Harmless and quite beneficial. Five days.

On the following "news" clip (which doubles as a commercial for the trap) the owner demonstrates the depth of his understanding of the ecological value of snakes and their role in ecosystems:

"Snakes are not totally bad for the environment."

Here's Birmingham Fox 6 News reporter Chris Montana reporting from upscale Mountain Brook where people are not as accustomed to yard snakes as some of us are:



This was the line that almost made me scream:

“Not that you would want to, but with the proper supervision, you can actually humanely release a snake or whatever you catch...”

Not that I would want to? The underlying message is that it's OK to let the nasty thing suffer until good and dead. I'm also left wondering what sort of "supervision" Mr. Montana thinks a grown person would actually need to release a snake. Cool name, though, Chris Montana.

It would be nice if there had been some fair and balanced discussion of reptile conservation, but of course local TV stations know that's not what the public wants to hear.