In the summer of 2010, I was fortunate enough to successfully hatch out well-formed, gorgeous babies! Both red-throat and black babies emerged from the eggs, as I was poised with my camera!ĭue in large part to habitat fragmentation in their native environment in the southeast, the Eastern Indigo is a protected species. In the fall of 2009, I bred a red-chin male to a black female and my first clutch of Eastern eggs soon followed. Indigos generally come in two phases- red-throats and blacks. We have since added snakes to our collection that were produced by the following breeders: Steve Fuller, Steve Binnig, Seth Smith, Mike Mead, Gale Foland, Jeff Jones, Virgil Willis, and Andy Watson. Like many others, I grew up viewing indigos as the absolute apex of my reptile dreams, and in 2006, my dreams became a reality as I put together a group of Easterns from Steve Takata and from Robert Bruce’s lines. They are generally docile, and make for hardy and rewarding captives if cared for properly. Widely regarded as one of the most intelligent snakes in the world, the Eastern Indigo has been the object of fascination for snake keepers for decades. All rights reserved.This snake needs little introduction. The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2023 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. The reintroduction project has been an ongoing collaboration between Auburn University, the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, the US Forest Service, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and other partners, Godwin said. Both snakes were actually found by accident, according to Godwin, who explained “it’s difficult to just go out and do a search for them, because they’re small, and they can hide very easily.” During the winter, the project team monitors the burrows of gopher tortoises, where the adult Eastern indigo snakes breed in the colder months, in hopes of identifying the animals. The first wild-born Eastern indigo snake was discovered in Alabama in 2020, according to the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. And the released snakes are tagged with PIT tags, which have small microchips allowing researchers to identify each animal by its unique code. The hatchling was clearly smaller than those released from captivity, which were usually at least two feet long the snakes can grow up to eight feet long in adulthood. The snake discovered was clearly wild-born due to two factors, according to Godwin: its small size and its lack of a PIT (or passive integrated transponder) tag. “It is an excellent indicator that the snakes that we have released, which were born into captivity, have been able to adapt to the wild, are functioning as wild snakes, and are reproducing,” said Godwin. The discovery of wild-born Eastern indigo snakes means the released snakes survived and had offspring, providing a glimpse of hope for the species’ success in Alabama. The goal is to eventually introduce a total of 300 snakes to create a healthy and viable population in Alabama. In 2010, the first snakes from the captive population were released into Conecuh National Forest. Starting with wild-captured individuals from Georgia, where the snakes are also found, they began to breed a captive population. So in 2006, a team of Alabama conservationists launched a project to reintroduce the Eastern indigo snake to the state. A decline in the snake’s population, therefore, has a “domino effect” on other species in the ecosystem. Jim Godwin, an animal biologist with the Alabama Natural Heritage Program administered by the Auburn University Museum of Natural History, told CNN that Eastern indigo snakes were historically the “apex predator” in the longleaf pine forests where they live. The snakes, however, are a crucial element of the ecosystem.
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