Pine snakes in zoo ‘recall’

City leads efforts to save reptile

The Memphis Zoo is spearheading efforts to save the rarest snake in North America by pulling all of the species from zoos across the country.

“We’re doing something a bit unusual, honestly,” zoo spokeswoman Laura Doty said. “We are recalling all of the snakes.”

Each of the 108 Louisiana Pine Snakes hosted in 21 zoos will be redistributed to four institutions: the Memphis Zoo; the Audubon Nature Institute in New Orleans; the Ellen Trout Zoo in Lufkin, Texas, and the Fort Worth Zoo. The large, nonvenomous serpent is native to Louisiana and Texas.

“Now just four zoos will have 12 or more pairs and they’re going to have room to really, really grow the population,” said Steve Reichling, curator of reptiles at the Memphis Zoo. “It’s a real conservation machine.”

Memphis has long headquartered the snakes’ Species Survival Plan, a program managed by the American Zoo Aquarium Association. Reichling also serves as the species coordinator for the project.

“The whole purpose of the program is to make sure that genetically valuable animals are paired with other genetically valuable animals,” Doty

said.

On June 2, the zoo filed a construction permit application for “a metal building used for raising Louisiana Pine Snakes” at a projected cost of $148,668.45. The project is funded by the Catahoula Ranger District within the Kisatchie National Forest of the United States Forest Service, Reichling said.

“It’s an endangered snake factory is what it is,” Reichling said of the future building. “We’re going to apply the best husbandry and breeding methods to get these guys to breed.”

The building will be stocked with “wall-to-wall cages” and intense lighting to mimic sunlight for the snakes. Zoo keepers will manage the light and temperature of the building to imitate the seasons of the year so the pine snakes will hibernate during the winter and awaken in the spring to start breeding, Reichling said.

The building is not for display, but Reichling said the zoo will continue to keep at least one snake in the herpetarium for viewing.

The Memphis Zoo currently has three pine snakes, but the building will have the capacity to house as many as 100. It will initially have about 20 when it opens in late fall or early winter, Doty said.

Deforestation and urban development have decimated the pine snake population in nature, which is why the zoo breeds them to release into the wild, Reichling said. Doty said the zoo has released 50 pine snakes into nature.

“The Memphis Zoo is stocking the wild with pine snakes. We’ve been doing it for six years,” Reichling said.

“It is the rarest snake in the United States, and it is rapidly disappearing.”