Running With Snakes

Monday, May 12, 2014

200th Post - Hmm - Snake Conservation

This is my 200th blog post in Running With Snakes. Have I really stuck to writing blog posts? Holy shit - I have! This might just be the longest running streak for something that I have EVER done. Wow!

In celebration of this monumental post and personal achievement, I am going to take a topic near and dear to myself for discussing, dissecting, and pondering. I have written about this topic before but it is always a worthy discussion no matter how many times we bring it up. Regardless, it seems appropriate to dedicate my 200th post to...

SNAKE CONSERVATION

I just recently read a blog that explains in pictures why we need snakes (Buzz Hoot Roar). Once again Indiana Jones is used as the poster boy for hating snakes (maybe I need to make a phone call to Harrison Ford about donating to the Center for Snake Conservation). The blog explained how snakes benefit humans (pest and disease control) but it really didn't get into the amazing diversity of snakes and their behavior. It is this diversity that I am interested in conserving - not just the rare or economically important snakes. Snakes play roles in our ecosystems but we really do not understand their true importance.

First I am going to make some broad assumptions that I am willing to discuss with anyone. Then I will jump into some snake conservation issues beyond what are normally discussed.

Assumptions affecting conservation efforts around the world:

Humans conserve what they love and understand

Birds - colorful, noisy, diurnal, and visible almost anywhere (big commercial industry too)
Mammals - cute and cuddly; big and scary
Fish - big money (bass tournaments), fly fishing, and food source
Trees - everyone likes trees especially rain forest trees
Insects - maybe these need more conservation efforts
Sharks - Shark Week - enough said
Whales - Greenpeace makes this a 100 million dollar business
Turtles - who doesn't like a turtle? Think Lonesome George

Humans are stingy

From the poorest to the wealthiest, humans don't give up money easily
When humans do give money to charities, they expect to SEE (see notes above) the value

Snakes are rarely seen or given good press = no money

If a man (or woman) of God/Yahweh/Allah asks for money, the poor and wealthy give without question or hesitation - hmm (time to start my own religion)

Humans believe what the media (TV) tells them

I think we all can agree with this one

Humans are stupid

Not open for discussion

Now on to snake conservation. I mentioned above, pest and disease control alone as great reasons to conserve snakes but no one really understands the math. How many mice will you have in one year if you start with just a male and female mouse? Here is the answer that staggers people:

Assumptions for exponential growth:

Unlimited food
Unlimited space
No death (no disease, starvation, predation)
Mice have an average of 8 babies in each litter
Mice are able to reproduce at 4 weeks old
Mice have a new litter every 4 weeks

These assumptions equal an exponential growth rate of 1.609438 for mice. Do the math and the mouse population in one year will be 488,234,890 mice. Yes - you read that right!

500 MILLION FUCKING MICE

There are 113 mice in this photo. What does 500 million look like?

I cannot think of a better reason for snake conservation. Snakes are nature's best mouse traps. They can enter the smallest mouse tunnels and other hiding places to find and eat mice. They eat the male mouse. They eat the female mouse. They eat the baby mice. They eat them all. Birds (hawks and owls) can't do this. Cats can't do this. Only snakes can. If you don't want to get the plague or have all your food eaten by mice - you need snakes. Just watch the beginning of this movie clip from "Never Cry Wolf" and you will see some of the potential of mice (yes - the wolves are eating mice but they can't control the population. Wolves only catch the mice that become exposed aboveground. There are no snakes to eat the mice in their homes so there is still a shitload of mice present):

But...I want to bring up some little discussed snakes just as an example of how important snakes are and add to the argument that snake conservation is needed and greatly ignored - ring-necked snakes. I am not going to insert citations but you are welcome to look up the facts and opinions I use yourself. If you absolutely must have citations, you are always welcome to send me an email and hope it makes it through my spam filter (please no porn emails).

Ring-necked Snakes

Ring-necked snakes have a huge distribution in North America. They range from the Atlantic Ocean all the way to the Pacific Ocean. The variation in size, color, habitat, and diet is pretty amazing. These are snakes that are rarely seen as well. Ring-necked snakes are fossorial (meaning they live underground). Some subspecies are threatened by humans and other are not. They all belong to the genus species Diadophis punctatus. I really don't want to go into a long review of each subspecies here but if you search for photos in Google Images to get a feel for their variety.

Ring-necked Snake Distribution copied from The Reptile Database

Ring-necked snakes play a role in ecosystem health where they occur but since they are a snake and hard to reliably find, no one has really studied their connection to the ecosystem. Until we actually get into the details of their ecology, we will have to assume that their role is huge. Here is why:

Ring-necked snakes are mid-level predators meaning that they eat the small things but other things can still eat them. This makes them a critical link in the food chain/web. Oh yeah, I can hear you saying right now that this isn't a big deal because if ring-nicked snakes weren't there, something else would be. Maybe but I don't think so. For example, in the northeastern United States, woodland salamanders (Genus Plethodon) have the highest biomass of all the animal organisms in the woods. Ring-necked snakes eat salamanders connecting the lower trophic levels of the food chain to the higher trophic levels. Without ring-necked snakes, the energy produced by the trees, collected in plant tissue, decomposed by fungi and bacteria, and eaten by the little invertebrates would not reach the hawks, foxes, turkeys, or anything else that eats a ring-necked snake. Rink-necked snakes are that connection from the organisms with the highest biomass (woodland salamanders) to the top of the food chain.

Okay - big deal right. Maybe you don't think it is but think about the salamanders for a minute. While these salamanders do not reproduce at the rate of mice, they still reproduce. What if the world was over run by salamanders? While this might be a neat novelty at first, it would wreck our ecosystems by eliminating all the small invertebrates necessary for plant tissue processing - the world would look different.

Ring-necked snake eating a salamander

The biggest plus with ring-necked snakes is that they are small and beautiful. People can and do view small snakes differently than big snakes (less fear). Ring-necked snakes are great for dispelling myths and increasing human wonder about snakes. I need to also tell you that ring-necked snakes also eat snakes and snake eggs - hmm...

Regal Ring-necked Snake

Guess what? This blog post needs to change direction (sort of). I want to list my summer action items for the Center for Snake Conservation. The CSC has been around for over three years with not a lot of movement to becoming a PHYSICAL presence in the conservation world - sure we have an online presence but this does not mean much to people outside of the snake world. I wrote in my blog post, "Why I Need $120,000 Dollars - An Introduction", that I only need $120K to get a facility for the CSC up and running. Well, I also wrote that the CSC is much, much bigger than myself and my dream. Of course, I am in it for the snakes but just think about the HUGE possibilities of snake conservation and the benefits to other organisms once the CSC is rolling physically.

Shit - I have to go back to the importance of snakes for a bit - then I will get into my plans...

Snakes are mid-level predators. As I wrote above, this means that snakes are needed to link the low and high trophic levels in our ecosystems. Conservation measures that benefit snakes, by default, will benefit the entire ecosystem. If we manage our openspaces, parks, forests, and wilderness areas for snakes, we will ensure that deer have enough to eat (rodents compete with deer for mast foods like acorns), beneficial insects are plentiful, and even our plant communities are balanced. Snake conservation is different than single species conservation (deer, turkey, or even an endangered species) because snakes are a very diverse group of organisms.

Most people don't realize the number of species of snakes that there really are. Sure people see the gartersnakes in their yard but do they see the little brown snake (Storeria dekayi) that is a major predator on snails and slugs? Snails and slugs wreck havoc on gardens eating just about any new plant shoot and little brown snakes keep their numbers in check. Do they see the ratsnake living in their woodpile eating mice? Do they see the greensnake in their bushes eating spiders? They may every now and again but they don't hear about the huge benefit these snakes can provide humans.

Little Brown Snake

Snake conservation is not just about buying habitats and setting them aside. Snake conservation is a huge and complex organism. There are big issues and small issues - too many discuss here but here is one that disturbs me the most.

My biggest concern for snakes is roads and understanding the impact roads on have snakes to mitigate the number of dead snakes killed by cars. Let's use the black racer as an example of a species that is impacted negatively by roads. Racers are long slender, fast moving (most humans can outrun a racer - the obese and elderly may not be able to) snakes that live in most habitats. Well, humans also like to build their houses in these same habitats so immediately we have a conflict. Not so much with the homeonwers (racers rarely stick around long enough to be killed by a human but with cars. Cars are the problem! Wherever humans build a house, shopping mall, MalWart (my name for the hideous chain), or other buildings, we also build roads - lots of roads. Snakes cannot cross roads very well. They feel exposed which makes them slow down and cautious. Then the car comes and - well look at the photos below.

Who cares? So we don't have racers in our neighborhoods - big deal. Actually it is a big deal - racers will eat anything that moves and they can fit into their mouths. This included venomous snakes such as copperheads and rattlesnakes. Yep - kingsnakes aren't the only snake eaters out there. Racers also eat insects, mice, birds, frogs, salamanders, etc. You got it - they are important!

Racer eating a copperhead

BUT....ROADS SLAUGHTER SNAKES! What can we do about this? Well, we can study our roads and find out if there are patterns to snake road mortality. If we learn that a specific section of road is killing 75% of the snakes we find dead on the road, we need to construct an underpass. If we learn that snake deaths are evenly distributed along the section of road, we may need to construct several underpasses and road barriers to direct snakes to the underpasses. These studies are not being conducted.

In areas where new roads are needed, careful planning should occur to keep habitat corridors intact by building bridges or better yet - avoidance. Also - we should NEVER use nylon mesh for erosion control. This stuff is deadlier than roads but is commonly used to stabilize soils after road construction. Well - nylon mesh is another blog post for a different day but I will at least share the success story below.

I can rant and rave about roads and the need to mitigate the number of snakes killed every day crossing a road but it is just frustrating me right now. My writing is going to shit because of it. I need to move on.

What am I going to do for snake conservation this summer? Here is a list of 10 things I will be doing:

Solicit donations from everyone (yep - here I come)
Find 2 new board members who can make the CSC move
Continue giving snake talks
Get involved with the CSC Facebook page again
Make more videos to show people how amazing snakes are
Solicit donations (yep - again)
Advertise the CSC across multiple media types
Make CSC membership mean something
Establish a CSC weekly email update to members
Establish a CSC monthly newsletter for broad publication

We have been complacent too long - it is time to get it right. I expect you as my reader to support my efforts and consider making an effort of your own. Snakes are too important to be ignored any longer.

Snake Conservation Is A Priority Because Snakes Make The World A Better Place.

Well - folks. There you have it - my 200th post - #201 coming soon.

Thursday, May 8, 2014

Pale Milksnake Selfie

Damn - I love these snakes...

Are you ready?

Are you ready for anything? I like to think that I can handle almost any situation that may come up in my life ranging from life and death emergencies to deciding what kind of gum is best for teeth brushing. In reality, I don't think I am as ready as I need to be. NO - I AM NOT A PREPPER! I will never be a prepper. I actually cannot grasp the paranoia behind the need to prep for the apocalypse. Sick people that need help.

But I am mentally ready for just about anything. Death, of course, is something that is very difficult to be ready for although I don't think I will need to be ready for my death. I plan on living to 100. Since I have my death already figured out, I surely am not going to ready for it anytime soon. It is the death of others that is hard for me to ever consider getting ready for.

My dog, Maddux, turns 14 years old today. In his prime, he was the best dog I have ever hunted over. He nose was incredible. He was fast. He was driven. He could mark 2-3 birds down at the same time. Maddux is no longer in his prime but his drive is still there. I am not ready for his death - not at all.

Maddux on a recent trip to Wyoming

My wife has asked me to get ready for Maddux's passing. We have agreed on several conditions that must occur before I can bring myself to ease him into the endless sleep. These include:

Loss of control over his bladder and rectum
No longer retrieves stuffed animals in the house
No longer follows me from room to room

Thankfully, Maddux has not reached any of these yet but he is old. He eases himself around the house like an old man. His head thumps hard on the ground when he lies down. He pisses himself every now and again (but not enough to qualify). He gets his ass kicked by a mutt that only weighs 40lbs (Maddux never shied away from other dogs and knew how to quickly put them in their place if they tried anything stupid). Maddux is old.

Maddux

I am not ready for his passing. I don't know if I can be. But the question remains...

Are you ready? Are you ready for anything ranging from a life and death emergency to picking out the right gum to brush your teeth? Are you ready for what life throws your way?

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

How do I write a blog post?

Great question. I haven’t really been able to get deep into a topic lately. For some reason, I feel like I am trying to force myself to blog. Just look at the last month:

Daily blog commitment - failed, this is just not my cup of tea. I ebb and flow.
Video blog – failed, although there really is some serious potential here and these will likely come back soon.
Fit Log – failed, I have to actually workout to write these posts. That said, I can feel my motivation growing to find my way outside to run the trails again.
$120,000 series – failed, but not really a true fail. I am just still processing on how to ask for money in earnest.

Hmm – the trend for failure is staggering. However, is it really failure? No. You cannot force a blog – if I were to force a blog, it would not be genuine to me, to who I am, to what I do, etc. I recently was given some advice from another blogger in the Google+ Blogging community about how and what to blog about. His advice was to always be genuine.

It is not in my nature to not be genuine. I could try to fake something but it is easy to tell when I don’t mean what I am saying or writing – too easy. Faking is just not me so the advice given was something that I was already doing. This confirmed that my blog “RunningWithSnakes” is exactly what I need in my life. It gives me an uncensored outlet for me to express my thoughts, my mind, and my creativity without having to “talk” to anyone. I have bottled this shit up so long that it has shamed me into who I am – getting it out is making me a better and stronger person.

Back to the question I am asking myself today – “How do I write a blog post?” This really is a great question. The answer is that I pick something (anything is game) and just start writing. There is no outline or script. There may be an agenda but the blog rarely follows it clearly. I let my mind wander and wander as it is writing. This is who I am - a 39 year old human male (only 178 days until I turn 40) with ADD.

My ADD is a classic case actually. I have the ability to super/hyper focus on what is interesting to me (snakes) but as soon as I lose interest, there is nothing I can do to make my mind sit still long enough to grasp anything (I have a lot of blog posts that have never been finished because I just lose interest). I self-medicate with obscene amounts of caffeine and also take Adderall under a shrink's guidance. I have written enough about my ADD in the past but this trait of mine is what makes writing blog posts so fun for me. I pick a topic that interests me and then let my mind wander and my fingers type until the blog is complete. It works for me and creates genuine blog posts that provide a quick up-skirt peak of who I am.

Let me show you how this works. I am sitting at my desk writing this blog and my eyes keep drifting to two buckeye nuts that I keep on my monitor stand. They really have my attention now so today’s interesting topic is…

Buckeyes

During one of my lunch runs from work several falls ago, I ran under a buckeye tree. As I am always looking for neat and interesting things during my runs, I slammed on the brakes and stopped. I have run this route before without noticing the tree but on that day, the nuts had begun to fall to the ground. At the time, I was recording data for a group called Project Noah so I took a few photos of my newly discovered tree. If you are interested, you can see my Project Noah entry here: American Buckeye. Buckeyes are very interesting nuts and the two nuts I collected on that run in October 2012 still sit on my desk today.

One of my favorite cookies is modeled after buckeyes. Well, these cookies aren't really cookies at all. They are balls of peanut butter, powered sugar, and butter that have been dipped in a chocolate paraffin mix. They look like the little buckeye nuts and damn they are good. I guess I should call these delicious balls of fat and sugar, “candy”, but my family serves them as cookies during Christmas. My sister, Emily, is always the one that makes the buckeyes for the family. Even when we don't spend Christmas together, she will still send me some buckeyes in the mail. THANK YOU EMILY!

I must confess that even though I love to cook and these are my favorite cookies, I have NEVER made them. Isn't that strange?

My favorite cookie

Buckeyes (the candy/cookie) bring up mixed emotions for me. Right now I am nauseous with anxiety about whether or not to tell you the truth about how thinking about buckeyes makes me feel. I wrote above that I am always genuine in my blog posts. However, I am not ready to let these emotions run free so maybe now is not the time to get deep into my psyche – let’s keep this loose and fun. Just letting myself write that I am not going to write about these emotions right now has allowed me to take a deep breath and stem my anxiety. Yes – regardless of how good they taste, buckeyes bring up some serious shit inside me.

As you can see in the photos above, the buckeye candy very closely resembles the buckeye nut – even down to the little point in the middle of the light part. Pretty amazing actually that a human food ended up with a perfect name for the candy. The tree though is even more amazing that the cookie. However, if you want to skip the tree facts and get straight to enjoying these amazing treats, you can find the recipe for buckeyes at the end of this post.

The American buckeye tree (Aesculus glabra) is native to the Midwest. It is a moderately sized deciduous tree growing beneath the canopy of other larger trees. It has no business growing in the plains of Colorado. But I found one in Denver so I consider myself lucky. Who cares if it was planted by some overzealous landscaper designing the park next to the South Platte River? I certainly didn’t because the buckeye tree brought back memories of college. I went to college in Richmond, Indiana where buckeye trees are native and plentiful. I loved picking up the nuts and feeling their smooth texture in my hands. They almost can be considered a worry nut (stone) that you can rub with your thumb to relieve stress.

It is the seed pod that is really fascinating. Check it out below. The seed pod is covered in spikes. It makes me think of a gladiator’s or knight’s mace. I can just imagine the seed pod being swung by a chain towards a known enemy. Inside this intimidating seed pod is a nut that is very poisonous to humans and even livestock. Stick to the candy buckeyes if you want to eat one.

I have always thought that buckeye nuts bring me good luck. This is why I keep two of them on my desk at all times. I just noticed how I have them arranged as a pair of balls next to the erect penis of my monitor. Too funny - I will have to change this. Speaking of balls, have you seen the 2^nd Transformers movie? There is a Decepticon with balls swinging and banging together making wonderful music in one of the big battle scenes. If you don’t believe me, watch this clip:

I grew up when Hasbro starting marketing their Transformer toys and I still have quite a few of the original metal ones before everything became cheap plastic. One of the toys that I always wanted was Devastator (the one with balls). Devastator is a giant Decepticon made up of several smaller Decepticons. The original toy did not have testicles but the creators of the movie thought it might be funny to add them in – I actually think it was a pretty stupid and completely unnecessary thing to do. Yes, humanoid robots from outerspace that can transform into almost anything have testicles. Whatever.

The "real" Devastator

Now do you want to hear what else the buckeye is associated with? This may even be what the creators of the Transformers movie were getting at. A buckeye kept in a man's pocket is supposed to bring him luck of the sexual kind (funny - a lot of my blogs have sex in them - well I am a human male after all). Yes - a testicle shaped nut is supposed to bring someone good fortune when trying to score. You can read more about this magical property of the buckeye on the Lucky Mojo website. I wonder what would happen if a man kept more than one buckeye in his pocket...

I am a Google man so I decided to Google "buckeye" to see if I was missing anything about these amazing nuts and I learned something new. Something that is important enough to bring up here. The Buckeye is the only breed of American chicken developed by a woman. Nettie Metcalf first bred Buckeyes in 1896 and they flourished for a while as a good layer and meat bird. However, the show quality of the Buckeye breed was low so their popularity diminished. Now there are fewer than 1000 Buckeyes in the United States and they are listed as "threatened" by the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy. Really? As a biologist who regularly consults with the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) about threatened and endangered species, I did not even know that a chicken breed could be listed as threatened. I will have to bring this up at my next FWS meeting and make sure my project does not have any impacts on this breed.

Buckeye Rooster

Alright - I think it is time to wrap up this buckeye blog. I have told you what I know about them and what I learned. Buckeyes are a tree, a candy, a good luck charm, and a chicken. As promised, here is the recipe for the candy for those inclined to indulge in something delicious.

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Dandelions

My youngest has a play streak 10 miles long. Yes - he can be a cranky bastard but he also can be a very sweet and imaginative young man. Today while picking up his older brother at school, he was picking the yellow dandelions and making exaggerated smelling motions with each one. Then he saw them - the giant field of dandelions just waiting for the wind (or some little boy with a huge desire to make them fly). I whipped out my iPhone and captured as much video as I could before the battery died (roughly 30 seconds - my battery was at 2%).

This video is the result (remember to watch it in HD - I really wish YouTube made this the default):

I had my weekly brain fixing today as well. I have missed the last two weeks because of work commitments so I was really ready for a good session. Unfortunately, my session went into parts of my mind that questioned my ability to have fun. For example, on my way home from Wyoming last week, I took a 30 minute break to look for some snakes. I found the snakes I was looking for but in the end I felt shame for taking the time to have some fun for myself - lots of shame. This shame has been eating me up all week and I am glad I got to talk about it. NO ONE SHOULD EVER FEEL SHAME FOR HAVING GOOD, CLEAN FUN!

I do - I always feel shame when I take time for myself. It is part of my self-loathing, self-abuse, and self-punishment. I don't deserve to have fun. I shouldn't be taking time for myself. I shouldn't ever take time away from work or family to get outdoors and be happy.

On the flip side - I love to get outdoors with nothing but my thoughts. No people, no worries (I am good at shutting these out when looking for snakes), no responsibilities. The trouble is that the minute I let myself back into reality, the shame sets in and I BEAT THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF MYSELF! I am working through why I do this to myself and finding a solution that will allow me to have fun without the shame.

Look at the photo below. My son is having uninhibited fun. Sure he knew he was showing off for the camera but that did not matter to him - he was having fun. No shame afterwards either. He was all smiles on the way home and loves the video I made for him. He is my role model for having fun without shame - all my boys are.

So where are you on the scale? Are you a narcissist where the world revolves around you and your fun? Or are you like me? I hope you are somewhere in the middle and can enjoy yourself and have FUN without the negativity of shame. I am working my way there.