CHARLESTON — The thing about moving one of the deadliest snakes in North America is that it’s dangerous. For the snake.
But relocating eastern diamondback rattlesnakes can be done, researcher Jayme Waldron found. And moving them to larger tracts of pinelands might be the best bet for conserving what is maybe the most hated native Lowcountry species — a 6-foot-long, muscled arm-thick, venomous viper that people have stomped, chopped, shot and even dynamited for generations when they crossed paths.
Why not just let it die?
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The diamondback is a keystone species in the health of the longleaf savannah ecosystem, the pines that are the heart of the Lowcountry. That’s places like the prestigious ACE Basin, the ecological preserve of nearly a quarter-million acres along the Ashepoo, Combahee and Edisto rivers between Charleston and Beaufort.
The tracts are habitat for 300 varieties of native plants, myriad birds including the wild turkey, 170 species of reptiles or amphibians, and 36 mammals. The rattler eats rodents and is food for raptors and other animals.
The diamondback is a species of concern in South Carolina, disappearing as people move in. Foresters are now working in places such as the ACE to restore the savannahs after two centuries of devastating logging and the substitution of poorer quality commercial pine habitat.
“This is a magnificent animal. When we lose him, we lose a large part of the Lowcountry because the diamondback’s habitat is a vital part of what makes this place,” said veterinarian Sam Seashole in a 2006 story about Waldron’s study.
Diamondbacks do have a reputation for ferocity, the classic “it came out of nowhere” rattler with a lightning-like strike. But the snake is relatively docile.
The good news for the queasy is that Waldron’s study confirmed what a lot of herpetologists suspected intuitively. A relocated diamondback won’t stay put, at least for the first year. It will cover four times as much range as usual before it settles down. So, the farther it can be kept from traveled roads the better. Waldron’s findings suggest it’s safer for the snakes if they are relocated to woodlands bigger than the ones they left. Waldron conducted the study for the University of Georgia in cooperation with S.C. Department of Natural Resources Department. She relocated 10 snakes from tracts in ACE Basin along with two for other sites to the Webb Wildlife Center along the Savannah River, after radio tracking them for a year on their home range.
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