CANADIAN PRESS (Toronto, Ontario) 05 May 04 Droves of tourists flock to see snakes mate (Michelle MacAfee)
Narcisse, Manitoba: Every eligible bachelor who has ever suffered rejection in the pursuit of a mate should chin up and be thankful his odds are substantially better than those of the red-sided garter snake.
In what could be considered nature's own reality show, male snakes will spend the next several days falling over each other to vie -- at a ratio of about 1,000 to one -- for the affections of the elusive females in their world-renowned Manitoba dens.
The males haven't eaten a bite during eight months of hibernation, but the only thing on their mind is mating with the few females who have joined them in the open air.
Driven by lust, dozens of them, tongues flicking, cruise along their limestone sinkhole before eventually wrapping around a single receptive female in what is known as a mating ball. They court her by rubbing their chins along her back, hoping they'll be the lucky one to mate with her.
"Each male really is out for himself to try to mate with that female," says veteran snake researcher Bob Mason.
"But the female calls all the shots because they can't mate if she doesn't want to."
The thin black-and-green bodies resemble a tightly woven carpet as they move through the rocks and brush, at times rolling together down a slight embankment or dangling from short tree branches.
In an annual mating ritual prompted by the spring thaw, an estimated 75,000 snakes are emerging from their winter dens in Narcisse this week to the delight of scientists, who come from around the world to study them, as well as to thousands of tourists who pass through to look, learn and, at times, face their own phobias.
It's a scene Mason narrates with a boyish fascination despite the fact it's his 23rd straight spring studying the Manitoba dens, believed to be the largest in the world.
"The garter snakes of Manitoba and the den sites here are really one of the wonders of the natural world," Mason, chairman of biology at Oregon State University, says during a break in his research.
"Snakes are certainly one of the top three creepy critters -- if you consider bats, snakes and spiders to be the creepiest -- but yet these snakes have a certain amount of charm.
"They're not very wiggly. They're not very squirmy. They're very amenable to holding them. I can't tell you how many people I've gotten over their little snake squeamishness or fear by capitalizing on their qualities as the ambassadors of the snake world."
Janelle Dixon counts herself among the recently cured.
The eight-year-old student from East Selkirk almost missed her Grade 3 field trip to the dens this week because she couldn't bring herself to get on the bus and face the snakes she had considered "slimy and dumb."
Within hours, she was letting a 30-centimetre-long male gingerly slide through her small fingers, albeit with her teeth tightly clenched and eyes darting anxiously at her supervisors for reassurance.
"I screamed," Dixon acknowledged with shy honesty before quickly adding, "They're not so bad. I just held it and it wasn't slimy."
At the other end of the fear spectrum, Ethan Dubois, 11, ranks his trip to the dens right up there with Disney World.
Dubois couldn't wait to arrive at the dens after travelling with his family from Austin, Texas, for a vacation planned solely around a fascination with snakes spawned from a book report on The Snake Scientist, a popular children's book written about Mason's research.
"I like everything about snakes," said Dubois, easily grabbing a slithering form from the grass to demonstrate his point.
"You can see more snakes here than if you're searching and searching your whole life."
While Mason's work has resonated with children, he also points to its practical applications, especially in the field of reproduction.
He has isolated the world's first known snake pheromone, an odour cue produced to aid reproduction.
Studying garter snake pheromones could lead to better breeding techniques for other animals, or eventually better human infertility treatments, says Mason. It could also result in better population controls for pests.
NASA has expressed interest in Mason's research because the physical inactivity of hibernation is similar to what astronauts would experience during a mission to Mars.
However, such expertise is beyond the grasp of many of the more than 35,000 tourists who visit the Narcisse dens every year.
While many come to watch the spring mating, thousands show up in September to see the snake population -- now a more equitable balance of males and females -- return to the dens for winter after scattering for 12 kilometres or more each spring.
The snakes are guided by short fencing along the highway to 12 underpasses specially built by Manitoba Conservation and the community in 2000 to cut down on roadkill that at times reached 25,000 snakes each fall, threatening the population's survival.
The mortality rate has fallen by three-quarters, a statistic Mason calls a tribute to the bond Manitobans have created with their legless neighbours.
"I think if you were designing a tourist attraction and said you were going to make a snake attraction to bring people in, I don't think anybody would give you a nickel," says Mason.
"But the reality is the snakes are here ... and it's just remarkable that people come from literally all over the world to see this remarkable natural event."
Droves of tourists flock to see snakes mate