Research | MNA
New Technology Helps Protect Rare Snake
Photo courtesy Michigan Natural Features Inventory.
MNA’s Nature Sanctuaries benefit in many ways from the numerous partnerships it has established over its nearly 70-year history. One of those benefits is a unique field research project between John Ball Zoo and Michigan Natural Features Inventory (MNFI). At a nearly 200-acre MNA Nature Sanctuary located approximately two miles from the Ohio border, the researchers will be monitoring for the copperbelly watersnake in Michigan. This medium-sized nonvenomous snake is currently listed as endangered and critically imperiled at the state level, due to habitat loss and fragmentation, and this sanctuary is the only known protected site with a copperbelly watersnake population in the state.
But it is also because of their use of such broad habitats that they are at such risk. Surveys conducted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), and other partners, of the copperbelly watersnake in its northern range – southern Michigan, northwestern Ohio, and northeastern Indiana – have shown a steady decrease in numbers over the past two decades. The most recent estimates show only a few hundred individuals left in the wild. The major contributing factors to their decline are habitat loss and fragmentation, illegal collection for the pet trade, and increased risk of predation when they must cross cleared areas like roads and farmland to move between wetlands and hibernation spots.
Copperbelly watersnakes are unique in their extensive range of habitat use – during summer and breeding seasons, the snakes will use forested floodplains and shrubby wetlands adjacent to shallow lakes and ponds, including ephemeral (vernal) pools, and slowmoving rivers. As the seasonal ponds and wetlands begin to dry in the summer, they will migrate to more permanent bodies of water using forested corridors.
MNA has been involved in reforestation and other restoration efforts for the copperbelly watersnake through the USFWS Partners for Fish and Wildlife program since 2007, resulting in more than 20 acres of hardwood trees planted on former agricultural lands. MNA has also conducted wetland restoration at this sanctuary by searching out and breaking old drain tiles, which restores the natural soil drainage and retention to the sanctuary.
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michigan nature| summer 2021
