Summer 2005

A Rare Snake Needs Grass, Gophers, and Fire to Survive

by Zoë Hoyle

You'll probably never see a Louisiana pine snake in the wild. Four to five feet long as an adult and covered with a striking pattern of black, brown, and beige, the snake is certainly noticeable. But it's been seen only a few times in the past two decades, by dedicated researchers like Craig Rudolph who are willing to spend thousands of hours looking for the elusive reptile.

Rudolph, a research ecologist with the Southern Research Station unit in Nacogdoches, TX, has spent more than a decade monitoring the decline of the Louisiana pine snake, which lives in the dwindling longleaf pine forests of eastcentral Texas and the western Louisiana Gulf Coastal Plain. The snake is already listed as threatened in Texas and is a candidate for listing under the Federal Endangered Species Act.

"The range of the Louisiana pine snake has contracted into a few isolated areas in Texas and Louisiana," says Rudolph. "The densest population we know of is on industrial forest land in Bienville Parish, Louisiana, where burning is used to reduce and manage the undergrowth."(...continued...)