FARMERS’ ADVANCE (Camden, Michigan) 25 November 06 The island snake lady - Researching Lake Erie snake is one ‘dirty job’ (Kristina Smith)
Put-In-Bay: Kristin Stanford sticks her hand into a hole in the ground and pulls out a writhing, angry gray snake.
The animal, a non-venomous endangered Lake Erie Water Snake, bites Stanford, causing her hand to bleed, and sprays her with feces and musk. But Stanford isn’t fazed.
Catching the reptiles is a spring and summer ritual for the 30-year-old Sandusky resident, known locally as “the island snake lady.”
“They are kind of a smelly, gross snake,” said Stanford, who has studied the snakes since 2000 on the Lake Erie Islands through Northern Illinois University, where she is working on her doctorate in biology. “They bite and bite and bite.”
She tracks thousands, examining their size, movements, habitat, mating rituals and reproduction.
To determine what they eat, she makes them throw up and analyzes their vomit.
Her job may be the definition of messy, at least in the Discovery Channel’s view. The national network will feature Stanford on “Dirty Jobs” at 9 p.m. Tuesday.
Viewers will see her catching snakes with the show’s creator and host, Mike Rowe, at South Bass Island State Park and studying them at the Ohio State University Stone Laboratory on Gibraltar Island.
“It’s good for conservation and diversity,” said Carolyn Caldwell, program administrator in Wildlife Management and Research for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Wildlife, an agency working with Stanford on her project. “It’s nice to see a species that’s maybe not as charismatic as a bald eagle getting equal publicity.”
The Lake Erie Water Snake is an Ohio endangered species and is federally threatened, Caldwell said. It lives exclusively on the Lake Erie Islands and prefers rocky shoreline habitat.
“They’re probably the smallest population of invertebrates (animals without a spinal column) in the world,” she said. “They’re really cool critters.”
Stanford’s goal is to help remove the animal from the endangered list. The snakes’ uniqueness is one of the reasons she is so protective of them, especially when they draw islanders’ ire.
She has the rare opportunity to work in all three aspects of the animals’ conservation: Research, management and public awareness, which includes teaching children at nature camps about snakes.
“I love what I do,” she said. “It’s very rewarding.”
So appearing on one of her favorite TV shows to promote the snake is a big thrill. She pursued the network after she and her fiancé, Matt Thomas, watched the program when it featured an ostrich farmer.
“He turned to me and said, ‘What you guys do is way more disgusting than that. You need to e-mail them,’” she said. “He bugged me for a week about it.”
Finally, she contacted the show with a brief description of her work. The next day, they sent her a response asking when the could bring a film crew to the island.
“The whole time I kept saying, ‘I can’t believe that Mike Rowe is here catching snakes with me,’” she said. “It’s so surreal to me that people are going to be watching all over the country and know what our Lake Erie Water Snake is.”
To celebrate, the islanders are having a party for her at Tipper’s Seafood and Steak House at Put-in-Bay when the episode airs.
She hopes the show help people understand the defensive animal, which can grow to 3 feet in length. It benefits Lake Erie because it mostly eats round gobies, invasive, bottom-dwellling fish that threaten the lake’s ecosystem.
“In terms of trying to get people to respect the snake for what it is, she’s the No. 1 person,” Caldwell said.
Stanford distributes brochures that help homeowners who have snakes on their property. She writes a column in the monthly Put-in-Bay and Kelleys Island newspapers.
Although she came to work with the snakes by chance, she has become devoted to them. The South Bass Island job came open when she was working on a garter snake project at NIU.
The Ph.D. student who was supposed to conduct the research dropped out for personal reasons, making Stanford the front-runner.
“I love them,” she said. “I don’t think I’d be in the position I’m in or would’ve had the opportunities I’ve had if not for the snake.”
Researching Lake Erie snake is one ‘dirty job’

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