Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm out herping almost every day in the spring, summer, and fall here in Montana, and it seems garter snakes are always getting thier selves into trouble and needing my help. Here are just a couple of the stories ive got helping these guys. Does any one else have any.

One evening my wife and I were walking a trail looking for melanistic wandering garters and werent having any luck. We decided to head down to the river and walk the edge and as soon as we got to the water we saw a medium sized wandering holding his head up crawling towards us. I walked over and picked him up and discovered that he had caught a baby bullhead catfish and ate it backwards. The fishes spikes were poking through the poor snakes neck. I reached into the snakes mouth with my leathermen, and grabbed the fish by its mouth and pulled it out. The snake was fine after that, and went on his way.

We took a drive one evening on a dirt road looking for rattle snakes. I guess we were going too slow because a guy in a truck decided to speed past us throwing dust and gravel at us. I pulled over, and as soon as the dust cleared I could see that a snake was hit just up the road. It was a plains garter with her head smashed, and her body was all ripped up, but she was still alive. I cut her head off to end the suffering (she was going to die anyway), and noticed a little stripe in one of the tares in her belly. I ripped her open and found 13 babies in clear sacks. I put them in a deli cup, took them home and by the next morning all but one were trying to get out of the cup. I'm pretty sure that the next car would have killed those babies inside of her if I didnt find them. I took the 12 healthy babies out the next day to the same area, but away from the road and turned them loose.

Thanks for reading,
D.E.

Dan,

I have heard stories of the giant garters in California eating catfish and having the fishes' fins protrude through their body, some lethally and some non lethally. It's amazing they can survive this, just goes to show how resilient they can be.

That was great that you saved the babies from certain death. A lot of people will swerve to hit snakes, which is a shame. Watching the tallies on the field observation forum of the dor's is sometimes disheartening.

Scott

Neat stories, thanks for sharing. What do you do when you find rattle snakes? I kept a timber rattler for awhile about 15 yrs ago, they have wicked cool looking eyes, but the damn thing made me paranoid having it in the house, first thing in the morning even before taking a piss I would tiptoe out to make sure it was still in its cage.I kept in by the front door, I figured the sound of the rattle was as good of a burglar detirant as a big dog. I too like to cruise the river roads in the spring towards dark, last summer I saw many snakes and frog run over by cars, a few had to be ended from suffering. In august I was going down the highway and noticed a hatchling snapping turtle in the middle of the road and by the time I saw it all I could do is straddle it to avoid hitting it, I then turned around and went back and pulled over to get out and when I did a car came and went around me which unfortunately they then hit it, I went over to it and it was smashed but still alive with zero chance of recovery so I ended it's suffering as well, it was sad, cute little bugger. Several times I have caught hatchling snapping turtles in the late summer and fall and fattened them up over winter in an aquarium and then release them in my Uncles farm pond in the spring when I go fishing, I look it at as giving them a head start on life. I guess I do have one good snake story, I caught a brown snake in my backyard last summer and put it in a tub outside on the back porch, I was just planning on keeping it for a bit and feeding it some worms and then letting it go, then she had babies, there was a few slugs but 3 healthy ones, they were the size of a garden worm 3-4 inches, tiny and really cute, I kept them a couple weeks and fed them several meals each of tiny worms I dug up from the garden while digging up potatoes for supper, I then released them in the backyard. My backyard has no grass lawn, all garden,wildflower prairie, pond, creek and woods, good habitat for reptiles and amphibians.
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1.0 pastel ball python
0.1 mojave ball python
0.1 normal ball python
0.2 3-toed box turtles
2.3 eastern box turtles
0.0.5 3-striped mud turtle
1.0 northern diamondback terrapin
2.1 tiger salamander
1.1 red-sided garter
1.0 anerythristic red-sided garter
1.1 Iowa snow plains garter
1.1 Het butter stripe cornsnake
0.1 anerythristic motley cornsnake

I dont do anything with the rattlesnakes except look at them. I used to catch them, but got bit by a baby in 2001 so now I just look. Its not that im affraid of them, its the hospitol bills im worried about. My bill was over 20k for three bags of antivenom, and an overnight stay in the hospitol. Now the only time I catch them is if I need to remove them from a friends yard, or something like that. I also have a notebook I use to keep track of all the snakes I find, live & D.O.R. In my notes I keep track of dates, areas, and approx sizes, but just as an example on Flood Rd. in Cascade County, MT. I found 41 live prarie rattle snakes & 23 D.O.R. And since we are on the garter forum, on the same road I found 27 live red sided garters (most off road),& 13 D.O.R.

D.E.

Wow that's a high percentage of road kill to live. Do you think that roads are hurting populations more than collection and/or pollution effects on amphibian prey? What do you plan to do with all of that valuable field data?
Jeff
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1.0 pastel ball python
0.1 mojave ball python
0.1 normal ball python
0.2 3-toed box turtles
2.3 eastern box turtles
0.0.5 3-striped mud turtle
1.0 northern diamondback terrapin
2.1 tiger salamander
1.1 red-sided garter
1.0 anerythristic red-sided garter
1.1 Iowa snow plains garter
1.1 Het butter stripe cornsnake
0.1 anerythristic motley cornsnake

I forgot to say that those numbers I gave were for 2007. Road kills are hurting populations far worse than anything else, second would be housing developments. I really only keep track of it all for something to do. Maby someday it can be used for something. For now houses keep going up, more people move in, more cars on the roads, more snakes killed. It really sucks, but I know nothing can stop it from happening.

D.E.

That's why I'm believe that for some species, there only hope for continued survival is captive breeding, because land conservation only goes so far with an ever expanding human population (more houses, roads, and cars no way around it), and I think that governmental conservation agencies should be much more supportive of captive breeding programs, and I mean supportive from all angles. Luckily for the garters they are usually very adaptive to suburban and even urban enviroment.
-----
1.0 pastel ball python
0.1 mojave ball python
0.1 normal ball python
0.2 3-toed box turtles
2.3 eastern box turtles
0.0.5 3-striped mud turtle
1.0 northern diamondback terrapin
2.1 tiger salamander
1.1 red-sided garter
1.0 anerythristic red-sided garter
1.1 Iowa snow plains garter
1.1 Het butter stripe cornsnake
0.1 anerythristic motley cornsnake