YAHOO! Looking forward to picking up a copy.
A bit of Northern Pine trivia from my previous position with the National Park Service at Shenandoah NP in Virginia. While at Shenandoah, I became the privileged caretaker of one (if not the only) preserved specimen of P.m. from the Virginia portion of its range. The associated label indicated that it had been collected in 1949 near the southern end of the Skyline Drive by a park ranger. There were a few records from that vicinity and surrounding area up until about the mid 1970s. None since then!
In the early part of the last decade, a geneticist contacted me requesting a small tissue sample from the specimen. As its head was the only visibly damaged part of the approximately five foot snake, I took a small tissue sample from the specimen's mouth. In doing so, I noticed that the snake had been shot in the head by a small caliber round (probably a .22).
That area generally was one of the least snake friendly places where I was ever stationed and I am certain that a number of P.m. were intentionally killed there by every means imaginable - likely down to and below the threshold possible for the persistence of a viable population.
The habitat there changed considerably over the past 60 years or so too as the woodlands matured (following park establishment in the 1930s) and the stands of table mountain, pitch and short-leaf pines were replaced by hardwoods. A big bark beetle infestation claimed most of the pine stands and they never returned after that.
In contrast, the Pinelands Preserve and vicinity in southern NJ offers considerably more hope for the conservation and future of the species than any of the Virginia range did. To the long term health of that system, the habitat and to the Northern Pines.
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"The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese."
