Why is the lake erie water snake endangered
History of Lake Erie Watersnake Recovery
oh you're kinda cool
a lot of guys
people don't know okay don't think I
know this
Lake Erie water snake but this this is
at home but introducing that I am elated
ministering she's actually our captive
Lake Erie water snake that we use to
introduce our school kids in our
filtering program about Lake Erie water
snakes we actually add a few different
individuals and that all was abandoned
well we had another individual that
from us that was unbanded Lake Erie
water snakes are a subspecies of
northern water snake that were
originally described as having this
reduced color pattern out there on the
island and they are restricted to these
islands in the western basin of Lake
Erie this animal was formerly federally
listed as threatened and state
endangered animals so it was found early
friend Stephen dangers after 1989
because of both population size
obviously we have if you look around the
ideas we had a lot of habitat
destruction who want to build prodigious
clearing those abstracts in a non-stick
from the way and then we also had one of
the most well-documented cases of
population decline under human direction
with persecution so cosmic war actually
clearing out all these epithets they
were coming into contact with these
snakes and then and purposely direct
mating as many as we could so because of
those reasons
the state of nature I have been working
on in the population since right after a
listing I came on as just a graduate
student in 2000 working on a large-scale
telemetry project that we had started
trying to still learn some of the things
that about just the snake life history
that we'll still did not know at the
time just for example about how much
low-lying habitat the snakes we're using
we're in relation to the shoreline they
hibernated and those pieces of
information who are necessary because or
a lot of people don't realize you know
the idea of putting something on the
list of federally threatened and
endangered animals isn't just put them
on the list great you actually want to
develop what's called a recovery plan
that's going to talk about the types of
things that need to happen in order to
hopefully recover those populations to a
point where they no longer need to be
properly protected so those pieces of
information that I feel like I said when
I run were really vital for us to
include and to be able to talk about
when we went ahead and wrote the
recurrence
which we did in 2003 at that same time
gun is when my role within the
watersnake program shifted so I came on
and I just kind of started as a graduate
student and then by 2003 we had this
recovery plan in place and we've had a
lot of people said that needed to be
back to earth like except to hopefully
recover the population so my role has
changed to recovery plan coordinator in
which I basically oversaw all the things
that that needed to happen we had kind
of a research component so we still
needed to kind of look at the
populations do things like estimate
their population size and density we
were doing things like looking at their
diet what kinds of things were they
eating you know and the habitat
questions where where were they hiding
how much shoreline
they use then also became very involved
with the local land trust groups to work
with them to develop a conservation
easement initiative program that was
kind of focused around the arsenic we
had funds that were made available
through our our Division of Wildlife to
encourage local landowners to place a
conservation easement on their property
that would protect that property
for what for specifically water snakes
and the incentive that the landowner was
that usually when you place a
conservation easement that there's a tax
but vested with the property taxes are
actual low early evening so we started
that and then the other big component
was obviously the convention that there
is this huge human persecution threat to
the water snake so we developed send in
a very very large scale education and
outreach campaign surrounding the water
snakes I'm really just talking about you
know some basic basic life history that
these were not uh venomous species it
was not necessarily something that
people needed to be afraid of that they
were actually a historic and an
unofficial component to the Lake Erie
ecosystem here and obviously we focused
a lot on that next generation on a lot
of the local kids that we have here and
again working with some of the local
land trusts in nature groups we
incorporated a water snake law sentence
of the major camps and so the good news
is that within a very short period of
time we actually were able to achieve
all of those recovery goals basically by
2010 we were able to propose the water
snakes to be removed from the list of
threatened and endangered
and in September of 2011 we actually did
achieve the D listing it became a 2013
species to be removed from the less
threatened the example which is an
accomplishment that were really proud of
most people don't get to come on to the
project and actually get to see the
animal that they've been working about
and actually come off you know usually
it's a lifetime of work and before you
actually get to see something like that
happen but I think a lot of the things
that we were able to do um are really
something that the Fish and Wildlife
Service are proud to talk about all that
this is some this is the way that
recovery should happen we were very
proactive and a lot of those things and
efforts that we put forth especially
again like I mentioned within the past a
protection and management and within the
education and outreach that I think a
lot of conservation programs don't have
the luxury of being that proactive and
again that was because I was very
fortunate and being able to be out here
full time as as a recovery coordinator
kind of making sure we were kind of
meeting our goals and doing all of these
things so right now we are in what is
called the post a listing monitoring
period so
well now that the snakes you listed are
jolly well no they're not gonna throw me
on the street you know virtually still
I'm working with the with the water
snakes obviously when you work with a
species for 1314 plus years that's just
what I've been working on and then our
days that actually goes back 30 plus
years you end up with with one of the
largest actually most robust data sets
for any snake in the world that we can
actually do some really interesting
population biology science with in fact
you know the county where we get pretty
lucky with the data that we've been able
to collect on the types of parameters
that we can ask me first makes in
general that really kind of help just
state biologists interpret I'll just
understand more of the life history of
these animals but again we are in the
post a listing monitoring period so what
that means is that you know once you
remove the federal protection you don't
want it to be like okay yeah we're done
so with this species we are having a
five-year post a listing period and we
continue to do the similar types of
monitoring that
doing all throughout the recovery which
include a lot of the market capture work
so all of our adult animals we put in a
small microchip under the skin all the
pets act that's how we get the majority
of our again our mark recapture data as
well as a lot of our girls data
reproductive data that is you know from
knowing what females is growing keno to
specific sexual maturity when she's
giving birth so things like that a lot
of those from the work encounter so we
continue to do that as well as I am
monitoring their diet which that was a
huge factor that actually helped us
achieve recovery so quickly so early on
him in the study with the water snakes
we noticed that these animals were
coming into the shoreline very
frequently with round gobies so to do as
everybody know it around obvious if you
don't learn around nokia's we actually
have I've brought a couple over here in
the tank over here it's an invasive
species introduced through ballast water
exchange and pretty much it's taken over
the bottom of the near shore waters
around Lake Erie normally when we care
about invasives typically it's a bad
thing
well unless you happens
in which case the water snakes really
ended up taking advantage of this new
food resource as early as nineteen so
the gobies came into Lake Erie about
mid-90s 95 95 96 and by 98 we found our
first samples of gobies and water snake
diet from a liver to uh you know quick
snapshot of the population as far as the
diet analysis by 2001 to 2003 we have
done another subset of you know again
looking at stomach content analysis by
that time the percentage of obese had
was over ninety percent just this past
year this is another year where we're
looking at again what's the percentage
of different prey items in the diet were
at 98 percent Bronco B so this this
mission has become a very critical
component of this animals now existence
so part of the post a listing monitoring
includes looking at goby populations and
their stability beyond that the benefits
that the water snake have died from
eating round gobies through a lot of
research that we've done over the past
ten years since they started eating
gobies
a little bigger so they actually
attained larger maximum body sizes than
ever before they actually obtain those
body sizes faster so they grow faster
they have a higher reproductive output
so females are actually producing more
younger female they have higher
survivorship and they have an overall
higher population growth rate and so
when you look at all of those things
combined that basically was the result
the result is a population explosion of
water sakes which is exactly what we've
seen not just here locally on the Lake
Erie islands but also those mainland
water snakes that are living along the
marina is that again a massive amounts
of Covey's are also experiencing these
very large increases in water snakes
that they're that they're seeing because
of these round gobies so for the water
snakes it is a good thing and now comes
the time
a little demonstration to see if Apple
will actually eat around though before
you so you can fancy how they orange who
I put a little eating platform in here
though they can
I might have to take it out but I want
to be able to have something to be done
if she wanted it but normally I think
they are foreign and they'll go down to
exit we'll all the way down to the
bottom of the lake they don't actually
swim around at the top and the one for
fish that would actually go all the way
down to the bottom and it will actually
crawl along in probe the interstitial
spaces of these boulders looking for
gobies that are kind of nestled or
hiding amongst the rocks
definitely
at the time of listing it was at 15
1,500 to 2,000 1999
no she's just because she's the captain
so are she we had her since she was
about this banquet dinner for a couple
of years now she's a UH she's actually
three so we had her since she was about
this big and so she's very beautiful
oh yeah another Wild Ones when you pick
them up they are extremely aggressive
which actually leads me to a good point
the snake that captain Frank is holding
and then Eastern boxing which is
actually another species of concern in
Ohio and it's actually another fairly
rare snake just within North America as
well it's only found just in the western
counties surrounding Lake Erie in
Eastern Michigan and the southern
Ontario in Ontario Canada this and
animals listed as endangered Michigan
it's listed as threatened in Ohio it's a
species of concern and from all of our
data because this is another animal that
we continue to monitor through
mark-recapture and we do kind of look
and see how their populations are doing
as well everything that that we are
seeing says that the populations in Ohio
are doing quite well and they're
actually able to exist in fairly
fragmented habitat which you know is it
a good thing considering we have so much
habitat fragmentation that's gone on
within
the western basin region especially that
Lake Erie marshland area which is what
the fáák snakes are typically associated
with but because the water snakes are so
going back to your breast impression
question they are such an aggressive
species you don't necessarily want to
take a wild water snake okay I don't
like here look it don't you want to like
hold on that's maybe in the museum like
it's not going to be great don't you
want to love this animal it's not really
gonna work so well so what we would try
to do is do other species that were
local again but that were a little bit
more charismatic a little bit easier to
handle to create a positive experience
about snakes in general because for most
people when you're dealing and you're
talking about a conservation issue
around this specific snake if they have
an issue with snakes it's not
particularly this one or that one it's
snakes then John Green so when we would
create this Oh whimpering this positive
experience especially for kids you know
then all of a sudden the attitude
becomes a little bit different so that
was where so
poor job of creating positive atmosphere
for which people were already very about
back
yeah so are you gonna give me kind of
backlash of people saying hey a little
bit oh and that's a great question
because even right from the get-go and
we really started pushing a lot of the
education in outreach which was mid 2000
we had already started to see a
significant increase in watersnake
numbers by that time and when you start
to talk to people about well this is a
threatened or an endangered species and
they're going out to their box and you
know every morning if they're like I
just saw like 50 of them how can you
tell me that this is in danger like you
don't make any sense so you have to like
talk about scale you know obviously like
you know again pushing and reiterating
the fact that these animals are only on
these islands and yes even though
they're very locally abundant you can't
go to Kentucky and finally Clearwater
sink you know so that that was
definitely part of the education that we
had to pass on another huge component
that we did was pamphlets and brochures
and a lot of outreach about how to deal
with problematic water snakes we
actually developed several different
living with Lake Erie water snakes but
like if you're a boater like what to do
if we get on your boat what to do if
they get into your shed or your window
well at home or they're under your patio
furniture like what kinds of things
these landowners could do in order to
either discourage them or remove them
from certain areas that again try to
discourage lethal means because again we
didn't want to necessarily cut people
and killing them but we didn't
necessarily want people to feel
uncomfortable in their own backyards so
that was that was really how we handle
it and yes it now that we're at 12,000
that makes that that education and
outreach that much more I guess
challenging and it continues to be
something that we have to do it with
Lake Erie islands you know obviously we
get ten fifteen thousand visitors here
every day and those people aren't
necessarily from here so you know again
just talking about that this is
demek and we'll only found here is
something that would probably always
have to do we've really tried to focus
on getting long-term displays at some of
the nature centers and obviously you
know here when they talk with us and in
order to actually incorporate some of
the Lake Erie water snake stuff that
we've done here within our public tours
under brosser so we really try to get
the word out of water snakes where we
have been seeing kind of a leveling out
of the population for a while like I was
mentioning in the mid 2000 we were
really seeing some exponential growth
right now it looks like they're leveling
out because our population estimates
have been fluctuating just a little bit
between that's where it's going between
10 and 12,000 and that's probably where
they'll stay the main predators of the
water snake depend on what life history
stage we're talking so when water snakes
are born naturally they've wide berth
the young of the year about a sizable
pencil like really tiny little basically
decides the night crawler so all of our
birds that would eat a night dollar
we're seeing them you know go through
the lawn and eat water since I've seen
her
the watersnake don't obey your um
crackling egrets but then when you get
to something like at local she's close
to adult size our smaller male our
smaller females and adult males are
preyed upon by our blue herons and
egrets quite regularly in fact to me
initially when I started working out
here and then as we've kind of
progressed you know through the years
and in totally I started seeing a lot
more and I would have people come in to
have a lot more hair as acres that
they're seen and we actually tried to
work with the crane Creek in Ottawa
National Wildlife Refuge to try to get
some type of data the correlated in a
positive increase in the heron and Egret
population we didn't really
unfortunately they don't really have
anything like a hard number that we can
use to say that yes there definitely are
but we are seeing you know just again
through accounts people seeing these
herons egrets
a lot more frequently and regularly
feeding on water snakes and their dogs
are and on their beach
so they were probably seeing increasing
in those frontiers as well what you
would expect
we actually so just last Harrah had an
RN student that looked at a few
different cosmic deterrence to see which
words there's an excellent product
opening on our products that snake away
you can buy it
Home Depot it's active ingredients are
sulfur and then naphthalene which is
naturally miss again and lot balls
chancellor tested balls as well and then
there was some information kind of
floating around on the internet you know
these kind of home remedies of how do
you keep snakes away that recommended
cinnamon oils so we try to cinnamon oil
those were three that she tested she
actually did find that snake away did
significantly deter water snakes from a
specific area better than the other two
although waffles was the the second
bastian snake away tends to be a little
bit more expensive and mothballs and so
it's like 49 cents box why you know what
I do out and usually when I recommend
that to people and they do use it I
remind them know that you're not going
to names but then your fault my early
standing mama don't really smell that
very beautifully it's time to trade off
for some people just the fact that they
won't have
ball snake no big deal other people are
just like yeah you know it's fine they
don't really get in that often and we
recommend you know these other
techniques like keeping your old cover
keeping it you know a wave you know not
tied up right smack against the dot you
know things like that so is it just um
do you think it's just habitat or
behavior that I mean cormorants really
took off and this this general ecosystem
Lake Erie islands because of because of
gobies - it has been a huge food source
almost unlimited supply for them and is
it you know you don't see cormorants out
on these islands because probably people
are here and other other things but is
it is there some reason why you think
the the snakes are you know becoming
more dominant and instead of being
displaced by cormorants or or vice versa
well I mean we do get the corporate
they're not quite nesting here yet and
that's because their nesting behavior
they they don't like it there's a lot of
people and behaviorally when we know
that water snakes they don't necessarily
prefer if there's a lot of people around
I think intolerance but they are very
tolerant there and they are definitely
what we would consider a very tolerant
species when it comes to the types of
habitats they will utilize clearly with
the type of food source know their
native prey was displaced and in some
cases we don't really see very many of
them anymore because of the Gobi but
they were just happy as can be in
replacing that because food items with
the going and then as far as hibernation
habitats go you know obviously we got a
lot of kind of building construction
that telemetry study I told you we
started with we found that these animal
hibernating anything as long as they can
get below the ground there in people's
crawl spaces there another great time
out there in natural structures like
that Rock fissures and these tree stumps
and root balls that they probably would
have always naturally carbonated it but
I mean really just about anything we so
they are there do you ever find water
snakes up by where the islands to
connect the cormorants are on or water
snakes my sister not very many of them
because of the crazy bird population we
have out there but there are and there's
other snakes out there as well I don't
know if there's enough to sustain both
and Green Island actually it's an
interesting thing is Green Island has
some of the largest water sinks when we
when we go look and look at body size
the islands on green island that's
there's a nesting cormorant population
about um greetings oh yeah there there
I'm sorry I just - what did they eat
before there were go be the native
bottom rollers that we used to have so
which we still have a lot of log perch
it's a type of starter don't I would say
we don't have a lot of time they're
still around but that was a food item
sculpin I don't remember the last time
we about a sculpin and some lamb I mean
it's been quite literally decades man
tom cat which other smaller role head
catfish we just really just don't see
those food items in in their diet and to
learn that again probably just uses
density the density of joke
is outrageous compared to a lot of those
needed and which no again still might be
around what aren't far less that met
rated one of the kids in the other
classes out here that dominant bottom
species by far
being nice
another great question and actually one
that we want
this could be the last question we got
everybody we wanted to kind of know that
if they were eating a lot and so maybe
did some maximum phrase studies and
tried to figure out exactly how many
gobies the watersnake population may be
eating we looked at several different
parameters and kind of as far as their
life history digestive rate maximum prey
and the average estimate for this
population so just considering the Lake
Erie water snake is about a million
gobies per year and the nearshore which
sounds like a lot until you learn that
the estimate of goes-- into the western
basin is about nine point nine billion
however the good news is that that the
foraging haven't head of the water snake
actually directly overlaps with another
species of smallmouth bass to which a
lot of the the regulation and these
harmful effects that we hear about when
I came from
we are effective so these million go
bees that the snakes are taking out of
these mineral waters we would like to
think are actually benefiting our local
smallmouth bass natsu population cells
not all that I'm gonna suggest that we
start moving over to
