In wildlife management of small game, you NEVER have exact knowledge or hard evidence of numbers of the populations . . . what you do have are estimates of take numbers based on surveys. The wildlife manager looks for trends in the data, and then makes management decisions based on these trends.



For the management of these snakes, you can take a similar approach - you have to take what evidence you have and extrapolate from there. We can get reasonable estimates of take numbers over the years (even if anecdotal). . . we don't see any evidence of declining numbers. You take what you know about the animal's biology - sexual maturity at 3-4 years, maximum lifespan about 20 years, reproductive capacity 4-12 (or so) offsping per year, reproduction on a annual cycle in good years, less so in poor ones, etc.



All of the above takes the decision making from "OPINION" to scientifically educated guess = hypothesis.



Troy

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