A Colorado research team is combing North Table Mountain in Jefferson County, looking for rattlesnakes so they can study their habits.
A team from Adaptive Environmental Services has captured 11 rattlesnakes so far, surgically inserting a radio transmitter into each snake and then releasing it back into the space. Their goal is to find nine more rattlesnakes (for a total of 20) so they can monitor their movements and track their habits over the next year, ultimately helping Jefferson County Open Space to plan trails in safer areas on the mountain and reduce the number of rattlesnake encounters. “The primary goal of doing a study like this, and why we’re interested, is because we have so many visitors there and we want to focus on visitor safety,” Andrew DuBois, a JeffCo Open Space education specialist, told The Denver Post. [gallery columns="2" size="full" ids="17972,17975"] A $10,000 grant from the Jefferson County Open Space Small Research Grants Program is backing the project, which began in April. The team goes out two or three times a week to search for prairie rattlesnakes and to track the ones that have already been tagged. The field research will determine the places the snakes tend to hibernate in the winter, where they like to search for food in the summer, as well as where they choose to nest.Knowing specifics about how rattlesnakes move on and around the mountain top and sides, their preferences for hiding and basking spots relative to trails, where females are likely to give birth to babies will add a tremendous bounty of information to management plans for North Table Mountain Park, helping visitors learn to recreate safely and enjoy themselves, while preserving and protecting the wondrous diversity of snakes on the mountain," Bryon Shipley, a professional zookeeper and member of the Adaptive Environmental Services team, posted on the project's Rattler Tattler blog.Adaptive Environmental Services specializes in land and wildlife conservation, management, and research. This project is just one of many that they are working on.
According to the Rattler Tattler blog, prairie rattlesnakes can reach up to 65 inches from their nose to the tip of the rattle, though Colorado's generally average about 28 inches. They can be identified by their coat of keeled scales (which may be greenish gray, olive green, greenish brown, light brown, yellowish, or even pink); a pattern of dark, oval blotches, and a white line on either side of each eye. The species is important to ecosystems, and researchers are still studying to determine whether or not prairie rattlesnakes help control plagues and diseases that can be transmitted from animals to people. Their deadly venom can also provide ingredients for anti-venom and potential cures for heart disease and others.
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"Researchers have barely scratched the surface understanding the complexities of venom in animals from here, rainforests, oceans, and everywhere else," the blog states.
You can follow the team's exploits and progress on their Rattler Tattler blog.
Have you ever hiked or biked at North Table Mountain? Have you ever come across a rattler while you were there? Tell us in the comments!
