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Lenexa rattlers get a new home

Published on -10/15/2007, 11:16 AM

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LENEXA (AP) -- Five timber rattlesnakes whose dens were slated to be blacktopped are part of an innovative snake relocation program that appears to be working. "Most of our snakes are heading back to the place where we released them," said Mindy Walker, a professor of biology at Rockhurst University in Kansas City, Mo., and the principal researcher on the project. "It looks like it's been very successful." The project, however, won't be pronounced a success until next spring, when researchers learn how well the snakes weathered the winter. Timber rattlers are on the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks' "species in need of conservation" list. Animals on the list cannot be hunted or killed unless they are threatening to attack someone, said Ken Brunson, the state's wildlife diversity coordinator. In February, Lenexa animal control supervisor Jennifer Dorr learned that a large den of snakes had been found in an area slated for development in the spring. Dorr had been studying rattlesnakes with specialists after the number of snake calls in Lenexa soared a few years ago, and she had a reputation for her knowledge. Officials asked her if it would be better to destroy the snakes while they were still in the den during the winter or wait until they emerged in the spring and kill? "Those seemed to be inherently wrong choices," she said. Dorr proposed catching as many of the rattlesnakes as possible before construction began, and relocating them to a more protected environment. Snakes are social animals. They can live for up to 30 years and tend to use the same dens and associate with the same snakes year after year, said George Pisani, a researcher with the Kansas Biological Survey at the University of Kansas.