Lake Erie snake might slither off endangered list

Associated Press

TOLEDO

The Lake Erie water snake is close to wriggling itself off the federal endangered list.

The snake found only around Ohio’s Lake Erie islands is making a comeback and could be coming off the list of endangered and threatened species within the next year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Tuesday.

The once-plentiful water snake fell victim to development on the Lake Erie islands that sit midway between Toledo and Cleveland.

There were just 1,200 adult water snakes left about 20 years ago, and the federal government listed the snake as threatened in 1999, making it illegal to kill or harm the snakes or destroy their habitats.

Since then, there have been campaigns to teach boaters, anglers and island residents that the snakes are relatively harmless and not to kill them.

The snakes, which grow up to more than 3 feet long, aren’t poisonous, but they will bite when they sense danger.

The snakes also have benefited from several hundred acres of protected habitat and tighter controls on the construction of docks and break walls.

“It’s very seldom you have a success story in which you’re actually taking a species off the endangered list,” said Jeff Reutter, director of Ohio State University’s Stone Laboratory near South Bass Island.

Kristin Stanford, a researcher known as the “Island Snake Lady,” led many of the outreach efforts and even made a few television appearances on the Discovery Channel to talk about the water snake.

She said her goal has always been to teach people about the snake’s heritage and importance to the ecology.

The water snake once inhabited 22 islands, a portion of the Ontario mainland and a small stretch of shoreline in Ohio.

They eat small fish and frogs. They usually retreat from people, but 19th- century sailors said they saw them everywhere on the lake’s islands.

With the growth of resort communities on South Bass, Middle Bass and Kelleys islands each summer, more snakes were eliminated.