Bull snakes wanted

Posted: July 17, 2013 10:40 a.m.

Chris Somers holding a bull snake. Somers is a Canada Research Chair in Genes and the Environment. Photo: Courtesy of Chris Somers

Researchers at the University of Regina are looking for a few good bull snakes. Actually they are looking for as many bull snakes as Saskatchewan residents can find. University researchers, in collaboration with the Royal Saskatchewan Museum, are working to better understand the distribution and population status of the largest species of snake in the province.

Chris Somers, Canada Research Chair in Genes and the Environment, says the non-venomous snake has been assigned a status of “data deficient” by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC).

“We really don’t know how many of them there are in Saskatchewan, which is one of the reasons why we are doing this research. If you look at snakes on the Great Plains in general, when you get this far north this is not an easy place to be a snake. We have a very, very short warm season, and a very harsh long winter, which makes it difficult to be a reptile of any kind,” said Somers. “The reason that we’re doing the work is that there’s some concern about northern snakes in the Great Plains. Their conservation status, what their population sizes are. When you think about what we have here, not only do we have a harsh climate we also have one of the most heavily human impacted places on the continent in terms of habitat loss. All that native grassland has been converted to agriculture. It used to be potential snake habitat, but isn’t anymore. So you’ve got that double whammy of the harsh climate and a loss of habitat.”

Researchers capture the snakes, which can reach lengths of over 1.75 meters, fit them with radio transmitters, and release them into their natural habitat and monitor their movements. They also take blood samples and use population genetics tools in Somers’ lab at the University of Regina to determine which groups of snakes are connected to one another and able to interbreed.

“We basically go out every day, hiking across the landscape tracking the snakes and seeing where they’re traveling, what kinds of habitat they’re using,” said lab manager for the project Jessica Martino. “That helps us get an idea of how many snakes are out there and the types of habitat they’re using, and how far they’re moving, and what their home ranges sizes are. It’s those sorts of things we really had no idea about before at all.”