This past week at North Table Mountain brought out great friends and colleagues. Amongst us, we were fortunate to find eight Prairie Rattlesnakes, and all just off trail along the south and southwest portions of the North Table Loop Trail, as well as near its junction with the Tilting Mesa Trail…or said another way, up on-top from the west trailhead and sprawling east and southeast. (Stay tuned…we’ll use maps next week!) Our finds are likely snakes that are only in their 2nd or 3rd year, and about 2-3 feet and somewhat skinny. Under state and local permits, we gathered 4 to receive surgically-implanted transmitters, and they have already been released back where we found them. With these, and the 16 more we will collect, we will track them throughout the year to understand how they use North Table Mountain. 

Why is this important? Why not kill them as soon as we find them?
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As it turns out, rattlesnakes are important to ecosystems and to us. For instance back east (i.e. not Colorado), researchers are learning how Timber Rattlesnakes (Crotalus horridus) are contributing to the control of rodents that host Lyme-disease carrying ticks (Check this out: https://www.umdrightnow.umd.edu/news/timber-rattlesnakes-vs-lyme-disease). Here in the west, opportunities exist to study if and how Prairie Rattlesnakes help control plague or other zoonotic (i.e. from animals to people) diseases potentially impacting humans, pets, or maybe even their livestock. Also, these potentially deadly animals help save our lives, and not just by providing the ingredients for anti-venom (or antivenin). Search the web on your own, after reading this blog and checking out the rest of the website, to find the many ways venom helps save lives from heart disease (thank you rattlesnakes and other pit vipers!), diabetes (thank you Gila monsters!), and much more…and researchers have barely scratched the surface understanding the complexities of venom in animals from here, rainforests, oceans, and everywhere else.   

Who’s out at North Table Mountain finding rattlesnakes and tracking them?
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Simply put, there are a lot of people working with this project so that we can understand better how rattlesnakes use North Table Mountain and how to maximize visitor and pet safety. We’ll introduce our colleagues at Jefferson County Open Space soon, but first here are project leads from the Adaptation Environmental Services team: 

​The cooler weather will slow down our work some, but as soon as it warms up again we will be back out at North Table Mountain searching for more snakes. Please come meet us and share your experiences with snakes here and anywhere else! 

​Adaptation Environmental Services is embarking on another Front Range adventure with Prairie Rattlesnakes (Crotalus viridis). This time, we will be at North Table Mountain Open Space (near Golden) and are working with Jefferson County Open Space . Our goals are simple: find 20 Prairie Rattlesnakes, put a transmitter in them, and track them 3 days every week while they are active in 2017. Here, we will keep you updated with how things are going. A variety of experts will weigh-in weekly sharing bits of their extensive knowledge on a species important to Colorado. We realize that not everyone likes snakes like we do, and that’s okay. We invite you to follow along anyway and perhaps you will come to dislike them less…or hopefully even start to like them.

To say we’re excited to start this project is an understatement.
First, winter is always long and tortuous for those of us that crave the outdoors and summer warmth. This winter…yeah, I guess I saw a few flakes here and there…had a lot of warm days. These days tell us in one sense that we should be seeing our scaly friends. Yet, they lie low (literally) knowing it’s too risky to leave the den. A warm day could inspire a move one day only for such a risk-taker to be doomed the next as a Front Range snow storm rolls in.
Second, our like-minded human friends from within the U.S. and all over the world post pictures to their social media accounts of their previous and/ or current finds. Between the snow and these photos, all we can do is anxiously anticipate the field season and what we might find.
Furthermore, being out every week with great people is addicting! Cracking jokes with one another in between making nature discoveries is a big part of the fun. It’s also the suffering together that leads to the story of any adventure. We certainly don’t like bug bites or sunscreen dripping in our eyes more than anyone else, but after reviewing our pictures and recalling the fun things we had done the former doesn’t seem quite as bad.
Yep, we’re excited - a new place to explore, new friends to meet, and new stories that will be shared with laughter not too long after!

Now, about rattlesnakes…it’s time! They’re up and moving! It’s time to be vigilant on the Front Range for a bit until the heat suppresses a majority of their activity to night time. Or, in our case, we want to find them quickly so we can study all season how they use North Table Mountain Open Space. How do we do it? No, I don’t mean what’s mentally wrong with us to even want to do something like this. Rather, how do we find rattlesnakes?

IMPORTANT: I should add that while we may seem quirky to some of you, we are not stupid. Really. When heading off-trail and looking for rattlesnakes we wear snake-proof gaiters, close-toed shoes, think about where we place our hands, and do our best to look out for one another. Things may not always go perfect, but that’s why we try to put the odds in our favor. So, even if you’re not looking for rattlesnakes, don’t forget about them and know how to be safe. 

Thankfully on the Front Range, dialing 911 works in much of the area…you don’t have to know or remember all the “Do’s and Don’ts” of snakebite. Call 911 if you have an emergency…they’ll know what to do.