His dogs sniff out snakes
Researcher to track how much land rare slitherers need


Staff Photos by John Rottet

Ron Sutherland plays with Pilot, an English pointer he is training.

By WADE RAWLINS, Staff Writer

Few people react like Ron Sutherland when their dog finds a hissing snake in the back yard.

Sutherland praised his young dog Pilot during a sniff-out-the-snake exercise and offered a treat as a doggy down payment on future finds.

Sutherland is training a pair of English pointers to locate rare snakes as part of a doctoral research project at Duke University. Specifically, he wants to quantify how much land rare snakes need to survive. To do that, he needs to identify the number of snakes in a given area. That is where the dogs with their keen sense of smell might help.

"Snakes have always been hard to find, even if you're out looking for them," said Sutherland, 28. "The eventual goal is to be able to turn the dogs loose on any block of habitat and have them find any snakes that are there that day."

RARE SNAKES

Snakes listed as endangered or of special concern in North Carolina are:

ENDANGERED:

Eastern diamondback rattlesnake

Eastern coral snake

SPECIAL CONCERN:

Timber rattlesnake

Pigmy rattlesnake

Southern hognose snake

Pine snake

Carolina water snake

Outer Banks kingsnake

To learn more about Sutherland's work go to www.duke.edu/~rws10.

Scientists typically use tiny radio transmitters inserted in the snakes to follow their movements. But tracking individual snakes doesn't tell how many are in an area or whether large snakes share territory.

North Carolina has 37 species of snakes, including six that are venomous. Two species are listed as in danger of extinction in the state, and six others are of special concern, meaning they could become endangered.

Some species, such as the northern pine snake, a big, nonvenomous snake found primarily in the Sand Hills, are dying out because North Carolina's once-abundant longleaf pine forests have been cleared for timber and development.

Alvin Braswell, curator of reptiles at the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences, said that as land gets carved up by roads and subdivisions, snakes frequently get run over by cars or killed by people who don't want them in their back yard. He said Sutherland's research, if successful, would be a benefit to managing declining populations.

"Folks tend not to like rattlesnakes crawling through their yard," Braswell said. "That's understandable. At the same time, it's nice to have large tracts where we can keep some of these animals in nature."

Is 100 acres of forest enough to support a population of northern pine snakes? Five hundred? Scientists don't know, but Sutherland hopes to find out -- with the help of his canine research assistants.

In the back yard of his house in Chapel Hill, Sutherland has dug snake holes. On a sunny winter day, he placed a 2-foot, black-and-white patterned pine snake into a hole beneath a stump then released the dog into the yard.

"Find the snake!" he commanded.

The dog ran around, nose to the ground seeking the familiar scent. After perhaps a minute, the dog stopped in front of the stump and poked his nose tentatively toward the hole, where the snake was hidden. The find earned Pilot a slice of hot dog and praise. Then Sutherland had to reach into the hole and get the snake.

During cold weather, Sutherland mostly has been hiding snakes under boxes or buckets inside the house. He typically hides one at a time. In a small room, the dogs find the reptile quickly. "Pine snakes are big and boisterous and not afraid to strike," Sutherland said.

Sutherland has been bitten a few times by the pine snakes. He compares the bites to a briar scratch.

He is using nonpoisonous snakes to teach the dogs to keep a safe distance. Pilot was bitten on the nose by a black snake early in the training. Sutherland also uses rubber snakes with snake scent.

David Woodward, a snake researcher in N.C. State University's zoology department, lent Sutherland four pine snakes and an eastern kingsnake for training the dogs. While government agencies have used trained dogs to find endangered snakes, it is a novel and as yet unproven approach for scientific research.

"He is trying a new approach to try to answer some of these questions, which is a good thing to do," Woodward said. "Scientists are always looking for new approaches. It really has not had any kind of scientific evaluation."

Sutherland has identified 60 to 70 field sites of varying sizes in southeastern North Carolina to assess the necessary acreage to sustain snake populations. Another variable he'll assess is the density of roads crisscrossing a tract. He wants to acquire scrap sheet metal roofing and put it at the sites so the snakes can hide under it for warmth. The scrap metal could make the snakes easier to find. Starting in the spring, Sutherland plans to begin using the dogs and field volunteers to search the sites.

"If this works out, there are going to be a lot more snake dogs out there," Sutherland said.

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