Reptile & Amphibian Forums

can someone tell me were to find some snake traps ? if they even make them? I am tring to trap a unknown kind of snake , it looks the most like a Indigo. I need all the help I can get!! thanks.

This is the same snake someone else has been trying to identify.

The story was 5 came out of the same bush in S. CA.

It's been pretty much agreed on that it's not Drymachon...
Why do you want to trap it?

For some reason I thought it was someone else who put up the original post but now I see it was you.

I thought you already had this snake in your possession?

If you read my story on this snake you will read that it was killed by a friend of mine when he let his snake room get to hot! last sunday I went to look for more of them and found a great place for them to be living in this valley but it is about 20 miles from my house so I cant just go there and look for them all the time , so I was woundering if there were ways to trap them that are legal. I also passed out some missing snake photos and passed some out to some of the locals . and one older man that has lived in the area for 20 years told me that he has seen them on the trail that runs trough this valley. there were so many good places for them to be hidding that it would take forever for me alone to find some so I am just looking for all the help I can get.. thanks.

JIM

I guess it's not impossible that you have an undescribed species...but...I would believe Wolfgang that it's not Drymarchon.

If anyone knows...he would. He actually discovered a new species of Drymarchon in Venesuela.

It's not easy catching snakes in traps...and the legality would depend on the region. Also...if you do set traps, you need to check them DAILY and make sure they provide ample shade.

There are traps I've seen that look a lot like a lobster trap
that are easy to get in and difficult to get out...

You run drift fence along in the area where you expect the snake to be...leading into the trap.

The snake crawls to the drift fence...then scoots along the bottom into the secure hiding place of the trap.

They aren't too effective, but they do sometimes work.

As a kid in Texas I made what I think Dean is describing...a wire mesh box that had an inverted funnel on each end. A wire mesh fence about a foot high extended along the ground from each end. If a snake came upon the fence there was a 50/50 chance it would crawl towards the wire box and into it through the funnel. Once inside it would have a hard time finding it's way out. I think the fence extended about 20 ft on each end. A few days after setting it up I found 2 adult green racers in it! But after that I didn't have any luck. I had the trap in place for 2 or 3 weeks.

You can make one with 4" PVC pipe and two of those small orange parking lot cones. Like Dean said, set up a drift fence and set the traps along the fence. The cones have a square base so you can lay them so that if the snake is crawling along the fence, once it hits the trap it can't get between it and the fence and is diverted toward the opening. The success of these things is, of course, dependent on having a snake crawl along the drift fence, but sometimes they do work.