I had seen wild snakes several times before when I was very young, in addition to many large snakes at the old reptile house of the Buffalo Zoo. Snakes didn't exactly captivate me at first, but they always interested me. A rubber cobra or rattler was always my preffered prize at the average amusement park stand, and I always took some extra time to listen to the stories my father told me of his snake hunts as a child, or examine the picture of a green anaconda that a third-grade classmate had drawn in colored pencil. The word "snake" itself made me interested and fearful at the same time. Even today, I still find our limbless friends quite mysterious.
It was really my dad who got me interested in snakes. I loved to sit near the couch with my brother, as we listened to my dad's snake hunting tales of when he was a child in rural Ohio. "We had a barn in our backyard. One time I must have had over 100 snakes in that barn." That sentence brought a glow to my face, but I did not truly become interested in herpetology until he began to describe the diferent species he had owned. The descriptions I remembered most vividly were of the racers. Blue, black... he even told me of the red racer of the west which he never owned, but dreamed of someday adding to his collection.
Learning that there were different species helped me understand that each snake is an important creature with it's own individual niche in our ecosystem. All it took was a description of a blue racer for me to want to witness the world of snakes firsthand. We are all so focsed on captive propogation, and unusual breeding projects these days, that we forget about the fantastic wild world of reptiles. You remember when it happened to you. Was it a board? Some tin? With me it was a shingle. An old weathered shingle, laying out of view at the edge of a local vacant lot. The feeling of excitement in my finers, surging through me, as I flipped the debris, ready for whatever lay beneath... 2 DeKay's snakes. And I was able to catch the larger one- a gravid female.
I put that snake in a plastic red trash barrel. Shortly after I brought it hme, I asked my dad if he wanted to sit on the couch and watch it for a long time. We did, and it shed right in front of me. I was amazed, as I held in my hands the plastic-like substance that was a shed skin. It was the first snake skin in the giant collection that I have today. It was special, because it was my first skin, so I put it in a glass bottle.
The thing I loved most about snakes was the fact that you can find them just about anywhere. Diversity is a word that I have always loved. I returned to that sight over and over. It was just an average vacant lot of Buffalo, NY, but for me it was the gathering place of my newfound friends. I returned time and time again to find melanistic garters, DeKay's, and small toads and interesting insects. My dad explained to me that whatever I caught, I needed to release, so that it could continue it's role in the ecosysem.
I was very young at the time, and loved sharing my finds with my peers. I loved trying to show people that the snakes were not all out to get us. Other children came down to see what I had every week. I took that field for granted. I didn't consider what would happen to it. I was becoming more interested in searching the cages of pet stores, than scenic, beautiful natural locations. I missed the arrival of the bulldozers. My friends, including many snakes that my mother had grown very fond of, were gone. All of them. It wasn't until it was gone, that I realized how valuable our local populations really are. It was too late.
I had always loved the fact that snakes could be found in so many places, and I bagan to realize that in the future, many species may not be found anywhere. It was too late. Large reptile shows and giant stores had pulled me away from where my fascination began, and now there was nothing that I could do about it. I never returned to the field again. Other areas like it began to disappear as well. The other day, however, something made me want to go back. Something made me want to see if a miracle had hapened.
There it was. The whole place had been bulldozed, and yet the delicate little shingle pile where it had all started remained. I flipped that shingle...
To find an absolutely beautiful common garter. It was the first snake of the spring. I sat there next to that garter. For reasons I can't explain, I didn't really want to catch this one. I sat there under the sun with that garter snake, on top of those shingles, for a long time. I lifted up a large nightcrawler from underneth a nearby rotting long with a stick, and held it before the curious snake's head. It took the worm. The wild garter ate from the hand that fed it. This had happened before only in my dreams. I stayed there awhile longer, placed down the shingle again, and went on my way.
Nature had begun to restore itself in the crcle of life, but I looked to the nearby construction equipment, ready to finish the place off. This was the true end of my vacant lot. It was time to leave.
So many people seem to not care about local species anymore. They are only interested in beasts from faraway lands. This is understandable; someday I hope to travel to the corners of the globe, as a dedicated reptile conservationist. I will go to all continents (excluding Antarctica) to persuade citizens to protect their local snake populations. We all need to work together to save our common species, BEFORE they become rare. I want this anecdote to be a lesson to people across the world, snake lovers or not, to take some time to observe these interesting critters, and work on preserving their homes. For those of you who are interested in life of all kinds, I applaud your respect for nature. In short, love, respect, and protect all of our unusual friends.
Go outside right now. Take a walk. Look at the Anoles and little bugs and snakes. Think about the role that they play in the animal kingdom. Maybe pick some up and examine them more closely. Take one home for a visit. I want to live to see my dream come true- a world where people and snakes can co-exist side by side. All of us, as herpers, need to make a pilgrimage to the place where it all starts- the wild. We need to learn to respect ALL species. No snake is better than the next. They are all wonderful and exciting beasts, each with it's own story to tell, just like us. Each is an adventure in itself. I have so much more to tell all of you, about my experiences at that field, about my captive studies, about the trips I will tae this summer, about the nature films that my brother and I make, and about my hopes for the future that are bigger than life itself...
But you are all snake fans. I think that we can all fill in the blanks on our own.
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DAVE
1.0 Western green toad
1.1 green treefrogs
1.0 Florida blue garter snake
1.1 Oriental fire-bellied toads
1.0 American bullfrog
0.1 Spanish ribbed newt
0.0.1 Eastern ribbon snake
1.1 red-cheeked mud turtles
0.1 Dubia day gecko
1.0 Sonoran gopher snake
0.1 rough green snakes
1.1 giant African black millipedes
1.0 Okeetee corn snake
0.1 Albino African clawed frog
1.0 Kenyan sand boa
0.0.1 Argentine flame-bellied toadlet
0.0.1 African bullfrog
1.0 yellow * Everglades rat snake intergrade
1.1 Western hognose snakes
1.2 fire salamanders
1.1 scarlet kingsnakes
0.0.1 Argentine horned frog
1.1 Southern ringneck snakes
0.0.2 Western hooknose snakes
0.0.1 Florida brown snake
0.1 Northern brown snake
COMING SOON: Western worm snakes, Midwestern worm snakes and West/ Midwest intergrades, more Brahminy blind snakes!
