Pine BarrensField Notes

Nature and science

The rattlesnakes that crossed the planned boundary

Documented history and research · Sources compared

Radio tracking tested a development’s snake barriers. Fences failed to keep the monitored snakes out, while two animals used under-road culverts.

Nine snakes against a planning assumption

Commission and state wildlife scientists followed five male and four female timber rattlesnakes during a three-year project completed in 2004. The development had a 2.7-kilometer fence and culverts intended to redirect snakes toward forest. Researchers recorded locations approximately every other day during the active season, allowing them to compare the intended routes with actual movements. Pinelands Commission, rattlesnake study.

The animals ranged across extensive uplands and wetlands. Two large males each made round trips exceeding eleven kilometers in separate years. A pregnant female moved much less. Such variation made a single imagined home range an inadequate description of what every snake needed. Pinelands Commission, rattlesnake study.

Two different results for two structures

None of the transmitter-equipped snakes was prevented by the fences from entering constructed portions of the development. Two did use culverts beneath a street to reach forest. The final report identifies this as its first documented example of timber rattlesnakes using such passages, while emphasizing that road crossings and exclusion from housing were different objectives. Laidig and Golden, final report (2004).

The report also considered possible drawbacks: longer journeys beside fencing, increased visibility and encounters with predators. Those were concerns and hypotheses, not measured predation effects. Its cautious interpretation leaves a useful result intact: a crossing structure can work for particular animals without demonstrating that the surrounding development has preserved their full habitat requirements. Laidig and Golden, final report (2004).

Sources and research limits

The sample was small and the monitored animals were not tracked for identical durations. Possible human harm and predator effects are not presented as proven causes of individual deaths.