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W von Papineäu
at Mon Jun 14 13:35:33 2004 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by W von Papineäu ]
NEWSDAY (Melville, New York) 14 June 04 A snake in the grass - At Brookhaven National Laboratory, researchers try to save the once-abundant Eastern hognose (Bryn Nelson)
Jeremy Feinberg plucks the first snake of the day from beneath a clump of yellowed grass and lays it in the morning sunshine. It responds by hissing and flattening its head in the threatening pose of a cornered cobra.
He tracks a second to its hiding spot beneath a Japanese barberry bush and grants two more their freedom in the debris-strewn grass behind a research building. A fifth spits up an entire toad and part of another after spraying Feinberg with a foul-smelling musk in its sheer desperation.
There will be nine Eastern hognose snakes to track, tend, release or discover at Brook- haven National Laboratory on this Tuesday in early May. And each one will help a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist discover the secrets of a reptile that once thrived in the margins of New York City and Long Island but that now exists as little more than a marginal inhabitant.
The region's best known haven for the harmless but theatrical Eastern hognose snake lies within 5,300 acres of seasonal wetlands and oak- and pine-studded barrens surrounding Brookhaven's cluster of scientific buildings. This living laboratory also speaks to the growing realization that restricted-access government lands have become de facto refuges for a wide assortment of rare flora and fauna.
Since arriving at Brookhaven two years ago, Feinberg has helped to document and track an abundance of unusual amphibian and reptilian life throughout the laboratory grounds: spadefoot toads, repatriated spotted turtles, endangered tiger salamanders, and within the past year alone, more than two dozen Eastern hognose snakes. Apart from a published study in Kentucky, however, little tracking data exist for hognose snakes. From his preliminary results, Feinberg already knows that the snakes travel extensively in the spring but relatively little in the hottest weeks of summer. And the presence of both adult and juvenile snakes has convinced him that the laboratory's sandy scrubland may be home to one of the region's last viable populations of the stout-bodied reptile, named for its upturned snout but best known for its cobra and rattlesnake impersonations and its almost comical death feints.
But Feinberg would like to know more. Are the laboratory's hognose snakes territorial? And could that huge circular physics facility buried beneath the barrens, with its sunken bowl of sandy soil, act as a hognose nursery? If so, it might shelter the hatchlings and juveniles until the snakes gain the strength to radiate outward.
Eastern hognose snakes were once so plentiful in New York City's outer boroughs and Long Island that children collected them by the bucket on Rockaway Beach in Queens and the owners of upstate pet stores sought them in Hempstead's grasslands. But a precipitous decline in regional sightings during the past few decades has alarmed naturalists, and Brookhaven is emerging as one of the few exceptions to the downward trend.
In an effort to enlist others in his snake preservation efforts, Feinberg has asked laboratory employees to call in sightings and has hung "wanted" posters depicting the 2- to 3-foot-long snakes.
So far, his efforts appear to be paying off. Feinberg says he received a phone call during the weekend from a lab employee who told him a snake was caught within a research building's computer center. Could he please come and pick it up?
Now, shortly after 8 a.m. on this Tuesday, Feinberg puts his hand into a clear plastic box and lifts a paper towel to reveal the computer center squatter - a small yellow, black and brown snake playing the part of a menacing cobra.
A volunteer will drive the snake to the Bronx Zoo, where veterinarians will implant a small internal radio transmitter and a separate identification tag the size of a grain of rice. Upon its return to the lab, Feinberg should be able to track the snake's movements for a year or more by tuning a hand-held receiver to the same radio frequency emitted by the transmitter. The separate tag will allow the snake to be identified for the rest of its life, long after the transmitter's battery falters.
Within his low-slung office building, the 30-year-old Melville native often has to temper his considerable enthusiasm, especially in the vicinity of lab employees who don't share his affinity for small hissing reptiles, harmless or not. In a few hours, however, he'll play host to four like-minded naturalists from Jones Beach State Park, Brooklyn's Prospect Park, and the state Department of Environmental Conservation's regional office in Stony Brook. All four have volunteered to help find more hognose snakes for Feinberg's tracking project.
"I think we're going to have good luck today," he says. "This is definitely the weather where you see a lot of hognose: bright sun, little wind."
Feinberg could use some early luck as he sets out alone in search of a missing snake, one of five to receive radio transmitters last year. Last week, he says, signals from the snake's weakened transmitter were still emanating from a hibernation burrow on the earthen lip of a shallow bowl outlining the laboratory's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider.
And then on Monday, the snake was gone.
"It's very frustrating," Feinberg says now, as he scans the former lair and sweeps the radio receiver's antenna back and forth in the surrounding scrubland, hoping to pick up even a faint signal. He walks along the artificial ridge, then investigates the slope below.
And then, a triumphant "Got him!" The blips have become audible now, and Feinberg knows he's close.
Within a minute, he is gingerly lifting the stiffly coiled hognose snake from beneath a clump of yellowed grass covering a mossy bed. The snake is clearly displeased at being discovered, instinctively gearing up for its cobra imitation. But Feinberg is thrilled.
"This is the best thing that's happened to me all day - all week!" he exclaims. "Unbelievable."
He hoists the snake for a closer inspection. "Hello, beautiful," he coos, then heads for his truck, snake dangling from his grasp. When the snake returns from its transmitter refitting at the Bronx Zoo, Feinberg will release it here - a spot he's marked with a lime green flag. "It's a happy ending," he says.
Within the next five hours, Feinberg will pinpoint the location of another transmitter-tagged snake that has traveled nearly half a mile in its first week of freedom. He will release two other newly tagged snakes in the debris-strewn grass behind the building where their comrade had slithered through the computer room. And he will lead his group of volunteers on their quest for yet more snakes.
By midafternoon, the hunters have converged on the wooded borders of the laboratory's ringed physics installation, prodding the leaves and grass clumps to flush out any secret inhabitants. Two volunteers find success after an hour or so and carry their wriggling captives to the rendezvous point.
At the edge of a small ravine, Feinberg spots another hognose snake just to the left of a rough trail. As he grasps it behind the head, the reptile retaliates - splattering Feinberg's hands and his white anti-tick Tyvek jumpsuit with a dark, foul-smelling musk. Undaunted, the herpetologist takes out a tape measure to determine the length of his newest specimen and then plops it in a pillowcase for safekeeping.
But the snake isn't entirely out of tricks, and the bottom of the white sack soon darkens.
"Ewww!" Feinberg says, peeking in. "He puked up a toad!" One-and-a-half Fowler toads, to be precise. "I think this is one of the grossest ones I've caught." He manages to remove the partly digested remains and stuffs the reasonably intact toad into a plastic film canister for later inspection.
The defensive strategy of these snakes, he says, boils down to three general principles: "Bluff, freak out, or disgust your predator."
Despite the mess, Feinberg is elated. A new record has been established for the most new hognose snakes caught in a single day - three - not to mention the morning's successful recapture of the missing rogue. More good news arrives when he reaches his truck: a volunteer has captured a fourth.
Back in his office, Feinberg surveys the day's unprecedented haul, each captive temporarily housed in a pillowcase or purple Crown Royal Canadian Whisky bag. With a handheld scanner in his left hand, he lifts each bag in turn. One of the purple bags elicits a beep - an indication that its small inhabitant was caught last year as well, and implanted with the small identification tag.
Feinberg smiles. With three transmitter-clad snakes already wending their way through the underbrush and several more soon on the way, the summer's sandy scrublands will serve as a giant arena for an almost daily game of hide and seek.
Only this year, the snakes won't remain hidden for long.
To report a sighting, contact Jeremy Feinberg at 631-344-6125.
A snake in the grass
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 NY Press: At Brookhaven National Laboratory, researchers try to save the once-abundant Eastern hognose - W von Papineäu, Mon Jun 14 13:35:33 2004
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