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When Traci Wood speaks of indigo snakes, her passion for the species radiates. Its infectious.
Wood serves as the State Wildlife Grant Coordinator for the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (ADCNR) and has been part of ADCNR’s indigo snake reintroduction program since its inception in 2006.
“The inception of the State Wildlife Grant program initiated the conversation that started this project,� remembers Wood. “Our agency, like many other state wildlife agencies, didn’t have a large pool of resources for nongame species or specifically for reptiles and amphibians. State Wildlife Grants have really provided us an opportunity to work with reptiles and amphibians like we had not been able to before.�
In 2000, the United States Congress created the State Wildlife Grants (SWG) Program in response to the growing need for proactive fish and wildlife conservation. While funds were already available to conserve species that were hunted and fished, they were not available for other species.
The intention was for funds from the SWG program to be used for conservation efforts targeting species in decline before restoring their populations became too costly. Essentially, species could be helped before they required protections from the Endangered Species Act.
In 2006, as ADCNR considered how to utilize SWG funds, they recalled former Auburn professor Dr. Dan Speak’s work reintroducing indigo snakes.
Dr. Speak developed a fascination with indigo snakes. The species had disappeared from the Alabama landscape, so in the 1980s, he initiated his own campaign to bring them back and began experimenting with releasing indigos.
Wood and several colleagues visited to the sites where Dr. Speak had released snakes, looking for signs of successful reintroductions. Unfortunately, they had not been. However, they learned valuable lessons from Dr. Speak, and his work served as the foundation for building what would become a highly successful reintroduction program.
“There was a lot of planning involved in the process because all of this was new, and we didn’t have a model to follow other than learning lessons from Dr. Speake’s work,� says Wood. “We had to identify parameters for this snake to ensure our introductions would be successful.�
Dr. Speak had released small hatchlings, but they hadn’t been successful enough to reach adulthood. Wood and her colleagues decided to try releasing older snakes.
“It is better to release two-year-old snakes because there is a significant difference in the mass and length of one year old verses two-year-old snakes,� explains Wood. “It makes them less susceptible to predation.�
An area with a diverse habitat is essential, as indigo snakes require both upland and lowland habitats for various feeding and reproductive activities. They also need a site with appropriate gopher tortoise habitat because they primarily lay their eggs in the apron of the tortoise’s burrow.
Conecuh National Forest emerged as the perfect location.
As a bonus, the U.S. Forest Service, which manages Conecuh, committed to partnering with ADCNR on this recovery effort and has managed the property to help promote habitat conditions ideal for the indigo snakes released there.
Now that ADCNR had their release site, they needed snakes to release.
There were wild indigos in Georgia, so by partnering with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, ADCNR gathered snakes from the wild population to serve as broodstock broodstock
The reproductively mature adults in a population that breed (or spawn) and produce more individuals (offspring or progeny).
Learn more about broodstock . These wild snakes were transported to Auburn University, where biologists kept them in large concrete pools staged to mimic their natural habitat � complete with artificial gopher tortoise burrows.
The snakes laid their first clutches of eggs, and the wait began for the day ADCNR could release their first snakes.
Seeing Success
In Spring 2010, ADCNR released its first snakes. Every year since then, they have continued to release more.
The number of snakes released each year varies. It depends on how many snakes reproduced together, how many eggs were successfully laid and hatched, and if there were any unexpected mortalities along the way. Releases have varied from as few as 12 individuals or as many as 40 snakes. The snakes are released at the same site each year to increase the chances of interaction and breeding among them.
Since that original release in 2010, 284 snakes have been released at Conecuh National Forest. This year, another 40 snakes will call this place home, putting the total snakes released just over 300.
This milestone is significant for ADCNR. When they began releasing snakes, they set a goal to release 300 individuals because they felt that was when they would start to see if these releases were successful.
And they have been.
In 2020, the first wild hatchling was found.
“That was a very exciting time!� recalls Wood. “When we got our hands on it, we knew we hadn’t released a snake of that size, so there was no other possible source for it other than having been hatched in the wild.�
To confirm she wasn’t mistaken and that this was indeed a wild snake, Wood scanned the reptile for a PIT tag. Similar to microchips that some pet owners have for their dogs and cats, ADCNR gives all released snakes a Passive Integrated Transponder, or PIT tag.
Wood scanned the snake, and no tag was registered � this was indeed their first wild snake. Since then, Wood has found two other wild snakes.
Currently, the only method Wood has to confirm that a snake is wild and not one of the released individuals is by physically handling the snake and scanning it for a PIT tag. However, she plans to change that.
This summer, in partnership with the Department of Defense, Wood will employee remote PIT tag cameras. These cameras will capture all the snakes that pass by while simultaneously scanning for a PIT tag. Capturing adult indigo snakes without PIT tags would indicate that the released snakes are reproducing, and those offspring have matured into adulthood � a huge success.
Looking to the Future
Now that Alabama has reached its benchmark of 300 released snakes, they are contemplating what’s next.
“We’re starting discuss things that I didn’t even think I would witness, which makes me even more proud of the project,� says Wood.
Wood and the reintroduction team are beginning to explore the idea of a second reintroduction site. This second site would still be at Conecuh National Forest, but just in a different location on the forest.
The ultimate goal for Wood is to make this reintroduction program so successful, that the indigo snake can be removed from the Endangered Species Act’s Threatened Species List. But as with all recovery efforts, it takes time.
“It didn’t happen overnight that the indigos disappeared from the landscape, so getting them back on the landscape is not going to take overnight,� notes Wood.
“I hope that I’m here on this earth the day the indigo gets delisted because, at the rate we’re going, I can see that can happening one day. I don’t what that year looks like or the timeframe, but I can see it happening.�
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