Mostly frivolous academic exploitation, at it's feel-good story finest. Someone show me how this ultimately benefits the snakes directly, versus: grant money, padding one's resume or curriculum vitae, someone getting a (likely undersized) paycheck, and name recognition,etc. for the biologists/volunteers/professor(s)/employees,etc. involved with such a project. But no one seems to consider the magnitude of all the various personal motives and agendas surrounding these kind of studies. It's all in the name of conservation and understanding them better so 'we can better firgure out how to help/save/conserve the ____(snakes in this case but applies to any subject). BULLSHIT.
I'm a snake obsessed, self-taught naturalist, and I'll go out on a limb to say I've done as much direct active good on my own time and effort for the pine snake in S. NJ as what will ultimately become of this particular(or any similar) study. Not saying all of these projects are bogus but they're sickly overrated and they need to be reexamined and questioned. Science for the sake of science is BULLSHIT and I'll point that out every time. I have spent hundreds of hours in the pines seeking this species in particular(among some others) and can say I know these snakes better than many(most?) of the people studying them.
I can also tell you these snakes and every other species(snakes and turtles take it the hardest) will continue to DROP in numbers/population diversity/overall health as long as people keep reproducing(more than needed/ or is responsible to/accidentally), developing land that eats away at the 'pinelands preserve'('preservation' of which being subject to loopholes available, proportional to clout and money possesed by said developers), driving on major roads crisscrossing right through the pines, not giving a fuck if they run these animals over, poaching them for pets/money/etc....Whether this study goes on to find anything new or not(and 99% chance, it will not).
Important/relevant thing need to know about pine snakes- they roam around A LOT. More than most other snake species anywhere, not just the barrens. So they only 'thrive' to a any extent in very large tracts of SUFFICIENT habitat that is of course unfragmented by roads. Or they inevitably crawl across roads, eventually get run over by cars, and die. Such unfragmented areas are fewer and further between all the time, so it's more a matter of to what extent they are hanging on, not so much 'thriving'. They are one of the most specialized(i.e. needing some specific/limiting requirements for survival) snake species in the country and for this reason they are seriously endangered, whether or not any of the states they still occur in makes a law labeling as such. Now back to the main point...
Time to face facts people. STOP lionizing and deferring to folks with biologist or similar labels next to their name, they are human and have personal motives, bills to pay,mouths to feed, etc just like, say, a politician or doctor. I see it ALL the time ,over and over and over and I'm just absolutely f'ing SICK of it, it's beyond disrespectful to the subjects in question, in fact it could be considered (borderline?) abusive, really. Not personally attacking them as people or individuals, but as a willing participants of a faulty SYSTEM.
As a teacher, amateur field herper and fellow ophidiophile, I feel your passion for pine snakes and all other serpentes in NJ. I often have students in class who are fearful of snakes, and I always take the time to share with them, as well as anyone else who would listen, lessons about the benefits of snakes (and all reptiles and amphibians) to our ecosystems, their direct benefit to us, identification of venomous vs nonvenomous species, different families of snakes (colubrids, viperids and elapids, etc), threat displays and aggressive mimicry, and other facts about their morphology, behavior, and any of the other number of cool things about snakes. I feel that I have also done some things to convince a few people to become more conservation-minded, and hopefully at least a few of my students will become involved in some way with wildlife conservation, if nothing other than on an occasional and volunteer basis.
While I agree with you that these biologists are not doing this pro bono, I have to say one thing about the studies that they conduct-they generate data. Unless you, or I, or the numerous other field herpers, wildlife enthusiasts, or others who have a special interest in this or other species are going out and setting up population density studies, telemetry studies, and the like, with properly structured and controlled experiments, we are not generating the numbers may be needed in the final hours for the conservation of the species. When it comes down to it, more so than poaching, idiots running them over, or secondary poisoning through rodenticide, development is the greatest threat to this species, hands down (I know that you already stated this). When development is planned, money is ready to change hands, attorneys are present, and the incentives are all there for development to move forward, the people who are arguing against the development because of species conservation need to have data. Organized, analyzed, page after page of numbers, statistics, and facts backed up
quantitatively. Qualitative observations are subjective, and my opinion is that all of the things that citizens like you or I would throw at them in favor of preserving the land for the sake of pine snakes would probably fall short, despite our experiences or knowledge. Any observations or facts without numbers would present a hole large enough for the developers' attorney(s) to drive a truck through. I hate to see the snakes harassed too. I hate to see them cut open and implanted with devices. I wish that they would be left the hell alone to proliferate. That being said, when it comes down to it, each of these studies will perpetuate the understanding of this species, and provide the data needed to tell exactly, in quantitative terms, what the threats are to this species by development within ______ of their dens and _______ of their home ranges, what the population densities are vs. would be with another road built in location X, etc. Basically, the cold hard numbers that give an exact picture of the damage that development would directly do to the species, which I believe to be the most powerful and legitimate thing that conservationists have at their disposal to argue against development when the money is on the table and the process already has momentum.
Regarding the story that was written by Al, I hope that Old Grandad's grandchildren are still around when mine are. I hope that the studies done will put the numbers in the hands of the right people to ensure that they will meet some day.
