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Defenders Magazine
Species Spotlight: Giant Garter Snake
Want to take a gander at how long a giant garter snake is? It’s no anaconda, but at more than 5-feet long, it’s one of North America’s larger native snakes. Fortunately it’s only deadly to frogs and aquatic fish. And given its secretive ways, this aquatic reptile will almost always drop into the water from its basking site and dive to the bottom of the marsh before you—or a hawk, egret or heron—can even get close. Unfortunately we haven’t given this species the same sort of space.
Absent from 98 percent of its former habitat in California’s San Joaquin Valley—part of the 28-million-acre Central Valley that contains many of the state’s last remaining vernal pools, wetlands and grasslands—this species is listed as threatened largely because its habitat has been drained and degraded. Pesticide and fertilizer runoff from croplands have also reduced the population of many of the snake’s prey, including native red-legged frogs.
Defenders of Wildlife’s California office is working with state agencies, farmers and ranchers to protect what wildlife habitat is left in the Central Valley—before the giant garter snake, and other imperiled wetland species, drop out of site forever.
