Research

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.

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. 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.

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.

The research being conducted by MNFI and John Ball Zoo at MNA’s Nature Sanctuary will utilize an emerging method for tracking and identifying the snake populations – Adapted-Hunt Drift Fence Technique (AHDriFT), which combines commercially available game cameras and traditional drift fences to survey reptiles, amphibians, and small mammals. This technique allows the researchers to increase their field observation time while also minimizing human presence and disturbance in the habitat.

This survey method will also have the indirect benefit of offering researchers the opportunity to more closely observe the snakes, giving them greater ability to distinguish the copperbellies from other similar looking, but more common watersnakes. Another secondary outcome is the potential to survey species diversity at the sanctuary, with photos being captured all throughout the day of any number of other mammals, herps, and more that wander through the camera trap.

Conservation Director Andrew Bacon explains, “In this unique partnership we are using new technology to better survey for the elusive copperbelly watersnake. As we implement this survey we will also be able to gather data to learn about many other reptiles, amphibians, and small creatures which call this sanctuary home, and their presence and abundance will help to inform us on the greater ecological health of these locations.”

The Michigan Nature Association is committed to the protection and restoration of habitat for the state’s most vulnerable species, and it is through partnerships like these that MNA is able to accomplish its mission.

MNFI herpetologist Yu Man Lee (left) and Bill Flanagan from John Ball Zoo scout the Nature Sanctuary for camera trap locations. Photo by Rachel Maranto.

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