A few things. I certainly commend your efforts to try and rescue these snakes. Too bad more folks aren't willing to live and let live. Anyways, on to your issues...

You say it's a "very high and abnormal population of western rattlesnakes." I'm curious as to what you mean by this. And by western rattlesnake...do you mean Crotalus viridis or Crotalus atrox (western diamondback rattlesnake)? I'm not 100% sure about atrox, but viridis (at least adult males) can and do have rather extensive active ranges.

What I'm getting at is this. Chances are good that those snakes are going to be right back where you initially captured them within a relatively brief of time. A study assessing the efficacy of "snake fences" for keeping out timber rattlesnakes in a new housing development found that these timbers showed some degree of "site fidelity," meaning a horridus that circumvented the fence and was captured within the development was likely to be a repeat offender. Below you'll find the abstratct/authors from this talk (given at the Joint Meetings of Ichthyology and Herpetology this past summer).

I'm sure you've also been informed that relocations often result in high mortality. So it's almost a lose/lose situation. Move them too far, they may die. Move them close by, they'll be back and, with people the way they are, the snakes may die. Regardless, if you're being offered to be paid an hourly wage to remove snakes from yards and recolate them within 1/2 of a mile, you'll defintely remain in business as the snakes will likely return. So it's a good gig if you can get it!

Here is the snake fence info:

*BREISCH, ALVIN R.; TEAR, TIMOTHY H.; STECHERT, RANDY
(ARB) New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Division of Fish, Wildlife and Marine Resources, 625 Broadway, Albany, NY 12233, USA; (THT) The Nature Conservancy – Eastern New York Chapter, 200 Broadway, Suite 301, Troy, NY 12218, USA; (RS) 50 School St., Narrowsburg, NY 12764, USA

Rattlesnake exclusion fences: Do they really work?

The conflict between humans and timber rattlesnakes (Crotalus horridus) has increased as residential and commercial developments have extended into more remote areas. The
construction of exclusion fences has been proposed as a solution to minimize human/rattlesnake interactions. We report on a three-year study in New York that illuminates many of the problems with this approach. Based on the recommendations of an extensive threeyear pilot study, an exclusion fence was completed in 2000. The fence was positioned to minimize the possibility that rattlesnakes would move down slope into the subdivision area
after emerging from their den. The 1.2 m high fence, constructed with 1.3 cm hardware cloth buried in the ground and supported by metal rods, extended along the slope for approximately 2400 m. Between 2001-2003, six timber rattlesnakes were tracked using implanted radio transmitters. In spite of the fence blocking direct access, by the end of 2002 all six rattlesnakes had entered the subdivision. Five of the radio-tagged snakes returned to the subdivision in 2003. Each was relocated to a pre-selected area up slope from the fence. Sixteen translocations were performed on five snakes, four of which returned to the subdivision on one or more occasions. Although difficult to confirm, based on movement patterns, snakes appeared to
move through the fence on many occasions, as well as around both ends of the fence. Breaches in the integrity of the fence appeared to be a function of inadequate design, poor installation
and lack of sufficient maintenance. In addition, fourteen other rattlesnakes were also found within the subdivision and two rattlesnakes were found dead in the subdivision area during
this study, possibly killed by humans. We conclude that the fence did not achieve the objective of minimizing human/snake conflicts and that exclusion fences have limited value for rattlesnake conservation.
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