![\"\"](\"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Rattlesnake2-300x405.jpg\")
<\/a>Anne Yagi releases a young Massasauga rattlesnake in the Wainfleet bog.<\/p><\/div>\n
In reality, the Massasauga is a cryptic species, the mottled pattern of their skin blending well into their surroundings and making them challenging to see in their natural habitat. Their venom is a modified digestive enzyme allowing them to predigest their prey (mice, voles, shrews) before swallowing them whole. After eating, snakes bask in the open to increase their body temperature to aid in digestion and mobility. Rattlesnake bites are rare in Ontario and are normally associated with the young male demographic, trying to pick up a snake. Nobody has died of a rattlesnake bite in Ontario in more than half a century.<\/p>\n
The Massasauga is still found in scattered locales across Ontario, including the Bruce Peninsula, the eastern shore of Georgian Bay, a small area near Windsor \u2014 and in the Wainfleet Bog, a 1,500-hectare peatland wetland near Lake Erie, in southern Niagara region.<\/p>\n
Yagi \u2014 a retired management biologist with Ontario\u2019s Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, now doing her master\u2019s degree in Biology under supervisor Prof. Glenn Tattersall \u2014 knew that older rattlesnakes instinctively return to their place of birth to hibernate, just like salmon go back to their natal rivers to spawn. She had to find a way to break the cycle of neonatal snakes selecting their first burrow in hibernation areas that do not maintain a \u201clife zone\u201d.<\/p>\n
Her research on snake hibernation in the Wainfleet Bog began in 2001. When rattlesnake hibernation sites were confirmed during a radio telemetry study, she established a method of measuring subterranean parameters (the life zone) using groundwater wells, frost tubes, temperature and groundwater dissolved oxygen during winter. The measurements showed differences in the amount of life zone (the space below the frost line and above the groundwater table) where snakes could potentially survive winter.<\/p>\n
While Yagi\u2019s research had established that a life zone was key to a snake\u2019s winter survival, it was difficult to know exactly where the safety range started and ended.<\/p>\n
Four winters ago she began snake hibernation research in Brock\u2019s Cairns Family Health and Biosciences Research Complex. The state-of-the-art lab was used to replicate winter temperatures found beneath Wainfleet Bog, so Yagi could test neonatal and juvenile gartersnakes and Massasauga winter behaviour, in simulated burrow habitats (acrylic tubes lined with sponges bought at a dollar store). Snake behaviour in the lab was measured using a high definition camera system.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince you can\u2019t see down a natural burrow during winter, and you should not disturb snakes at this time, I set up both a lab and field experiment to test the life zone hypothesis,\u201d said Yagi. Eastern gartersnakes in their artificial burrows were \u2018force hibernated\u2019 in the life zone, and winter survival was determined 180 days later.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, Luke Gray, a third-year Earth Sciences student at Brock, won the Esri Canada GIS Scholarship, which helps students continue studies using geographic information systems (GIS). Using specialized ArcGIS<\/a> software that generates two- and three-dimensional interpolated maps, Gray mapped Yagi\u2019s life zone data collected during one of the forced hibernation experiments. The mapping helps researchers display the underground zone where snakes survived winter. Using Yagi\u2019s study site, Gray collected the life zone parameters during the forced hibernation of a model species, Eastern gartersnake. He used the life zone data to develop his GIS mapping technique.<\/p>\n This spring, Yagi and her team have been rewarded with evidence that the strategy is working. The growing snake population in areas where they\u2019d been released indicates they are returning to hibernate in the safe \u201clife zones.\u201d<\/p>\n Soon, nature itself will help drive the renaissance of the Wainfleet rattlers. The first wave of snakes released three years ago will be reaching reproduction age, launching a new generation whose annual cycle begins in a safe hibernation habitat.<\/p>\n For Yagi, the heartening results are what helps keep a researcher going.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Cairns Complex is a wonderful facility,\u201d she said. \u201cBeing able to do three years of metabolism and thermal behaviour research in simulated winter conditions was a key to the project.<\/p>\n \u201cOur results provide the necessary evidence for where ideal snake hibernation habitat exists, and supports our theory that successful snake hibernation requires the continuous presence of a life zone.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014 photos and video by Dan Dakin, Brock University Communications<\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Rattlesnake1-300x206.jpg\")
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