Archives of The Cold Blooded News

The Newsletter of the Colorado Herpetological Society

Volume 33, Number 1;   January, 2006

San Francisco Welcomes Home its Snake

Big celebration at S.F. Zoo greets imperiled serpents

Patricia Yollin, Chronicle Staff Writer

San Francisco garter snakes have returned to San Francisco -- but they didn't just slither into town. The newest residents of the zoo are so rare and endangered that they had to be imported from the Netherlands. How weird is that? "It's kind of ironic," said Harry McQuillen, chief of the endangered species recovery program in the Sacramento office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Ten snakes -- five males and five females -- will make their first public appearance today at the San Francisco Zoo, and it won't go unnoticed. Their arrival is the result of a collaboration between the zoo and the Fish and Wildlife Service, which means many officials, lots of long titles, and lifestyle improvements for San Francisco garter snakes -- both captive and wild. More than 50 representatives of local and national environmental agencies, along with the U.S. assistant secretary of the interior, will welcome the reptiles. They showed up in their namesake city in late April and were quarantined until Tuesday.

"People have no idea what we're losing and how quickly we're losing. it," said Jessie Bushell, an education specialist with the zoo's Animal Resource Center, as "Female No. 1" glided through her fingers and encircled her wrist. "It's like a living bracelet," said Bushell, who made sure the snake stayed on her hand and arm. "We try to avoid a living necklace because that can cause some issues," she added, laughing.

Listed as federally endangered in 1967 and state endangered in 1971, the San Francisco garter snake disappeared from North American zoos in 2003, when 8-year-old Alcatraz died at the San Francisco Zoo. His wild relatives can be found only in pockets of coastal San Mateo County, the northwest comer of Santa Cruz County and near San Francisco International Airport. And even though they're the patron snake of San Francisco, Lake Merced is the main place in the city where they might once have lived.

By any measure, the San Francisco garter snake is a knockout: Its head is red, its belly turquoise, and coral and black stripes run the length of its body. "This snake is one of the most beautiful serpents in North America, and it's associated with one of the most famous cities in North America," McQuillen said. "Imagine that San Francisco lost the Golden Gate Bridge. The same thing would be true with the snake." It's worth saving for other reasons, too. "Nobody knows what the loss of a species could do," he said. "This snake doesn't hurt anybody. If you're a frog, it's pretty deadly, but if you're a human you could put it on your pillow and it might lick your ear."

The Fish and Wildlife Service bought the 10 Dutch snakes -- which are 18 inches long and will mark their first birthday on Tuesday -- from a private breeder in the Netherlands for $1,780. It's likely that they're descendants of snakes the Fish and Wildlife Service confiscated from suspected smugglers in the early 1980s and gave to the Jersey Zoo in England. Four will stay in San Francisco. The other six will go to the San Diego Zoo later this month and be bred eventually for other American Zoo and Aquarium Association institutions.

"We could be up to our eyeballs in garter snakes in no time flat," said Joe Fitting, director of the Animal Resource Center at the San Francisco Zoo. "But we have to have a place to put them." And the wild is definitely not that place. "These guys are ambassadors," Fitting said. "We can go into the school system and show kids what a garter snake looks like. And we'll train wildlife officials. Most have never seen a San Francisco garter snake."

One who has is Sheila Larsen. A senior biologist with the Fish and Wildlife Service, she wrote her master's thesis on 75 baby San Francisco garter snakes in the late 1980s and has remained fascinated ever since. Larsen has no idea how many wild ones are left. No one does. "We hope there are more than we think there are," she said.

On Tuesday morning, Larsen and other serpent fans visited a restored wild snake habitat at Mon Point, on the coast in Pacifica. The main attractions were two recently built seasonal ponds that provide homes for Pacific tree frogs and California red-legged frogs. They, in turn, provide dinner for the garter snakes. As real estate goes, the ponds, grasses, uplands, and rodent burrows of Mori Point are perfect for the garter snake, and a counterpoint to the Sharp Park Golf Course and Fairway West housing complex next door. Agricultural, commercial and urban development are all threats to the snake -- along with lawnmowers, BMX jumps, bullfrogs, teenage boys, and phobias. "Anything that is silent and quick intimidates people," Larsen said. "The snake is always portrayed as the bad guy." And so, while her agency tends to the snake's living quarters in the wild, the zoo will try to demystify it, rehabilitate a reputation that goes as far back as the Garden of Eden, and persuade residents to "take ownership" -- though not literally. "People are surprised when they find their local animals" are endangered," Fitting said. "And when it's in their backyard, they're very intrigued."

At Mori Point, Chris Powell of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area gazed with satisfaction at a new pond ringed with cattails and full of tadpoles. "People will get on board to protect a big mega-species like elephants," she said. "But we need to teach them that this little snake is just as important as the elephants they've been going to the zoo to see." "And prettier," Larsen added.