It's Been a Good Spring

Adam
May 21
2 min read

Transcript Hey everyone! We’ve been so busy here the past few weeks that we haven’t had a chance to post an update, but while we have a little breather we thought it was time you heard what we’ve been up to.

With spring in the air, it was finally time to continue working on our Eastern Massasauga Rattlesnake conservation projects, so we headed out to some locations new and old to survey for the species alongside our good friends from the Southwest Michigan Land Conservancy.

The last rattlesnake sighting on this property was decades ago, so surveys like this help us determine which parts of the site are still occupied and what management actions can be taken to improve the habitat for sensitive species like this. And I gotta say, some parts of this site seem unimprovable, or at least unforgettably beautiful, and the wildlife seemed to enjoy it as well.

Fortunately, the little guys seem to be doing well here, and by the end of the second day we had tagged and released a decent handful of healthy snakes, assembled several camera trap arrays to keep monitoring throughout the summer, and managed to escape the site before any thunderstorms rolled in. We also had an awesome group of participants come in for our Essentials and Advanced venomous handling and field research weekends. We assembled some more camera traps for monitoring, and managed to grab additional genetic samples from a critical population we’ve been monitoring to help inform the construction of a new wildlife underpass. This site was no joke - the conditions were rough and the hike was long, but our course participants and volunteers handled it with cheerful enthusiasm. If you want to help with surveys like this, we have one more coming up near the end of May that will include some special guests and we’d love to see you there! To sign up and get details, you can check out the link in the description.

We know our calendar’s a little empty at the moment, but keep an eye out for more free events and professional workshops that we’ll be posting soon! Final survey signup: https://forms.gle/FYcQZiQ9MngkQfrr5 B-Roll courtesy of Colleen Kellogg