Rattlesnake Surgery

Are There Rat­tlers Up There? Yep. Lots of em. Nor­mal humans like you and I walk past them all the time, but we usu­ally don’t see them.

We would if we had eyes like Kristin Albert and Matt Goode, sci­en­tists at the Matt Goode lab, located on Tumamoc Hill. They have trained their senses to notice a snake in the brush or rocks, even if it is not mov­ing or rat­tling. And devel­op­ing that skill is what this blog is about:

Notic­ing things.
Pay­ing atten­tion.
Then notic­ing more.

There are three species of rat­tlers on Tumamoc, Dia­mond­back, Black­tailed, and Tiger rat­tlesnakes. Although Matt and Kristin like all snakes, rat­tlers are their main inter­est, espe­cially Tiger rat­tlesnakes. They have col­lected all these and other non-​venomous snakes on Tumamoc. I was priv­i­leged to be there when they did rat­tlesnake surgery.

The snake sea­son is draw­ing to a close with the com­ing of cooler weather, but I recently got to feel the pulse of a dia­mond­back rat­tler, anes­thetized of course, get­ting ready for surgery at the snake lab. Kristin and Matt showed me where to feel for the heart­beat: on the belly, about a third of the way down from the head. It was slow, but I could feel the pulse with my fin­gers. It’s now on my list of coolest things you can expe­ri­ence being born as a human.

I got to watch another rel­a­tively rare event: rat­tlesnake surgery. I did a lit­tle photo essay of some of the stages as mas­ter snake doc­tor Matt implants a small battery-​operated radio trans­mit­ter into the body cav­ity of the snake. Each snake has it’s own unique fre­quency so after releas­ing them, the Goode Lab sci­en­tists can track them, locate them on a map using GPS coor­di­nates, and even find them and catch them again. Its like catch and release fishing.

This is impor­tant because they do cap­ture them again and give them a check up in the spring and fall, keep­ing records as detailed as our per­sonal doc­tors do for our own med­ical records. But these snakes get even bet­ter treat­ment: how many humans have med­ical insur­ance that cov­ers a check-​up twice a year. And the doc­tor comes to them, wher­ever they are.

Except for the obvi­ous facts most peo­ple know about rat­tlers from meet­ing them on the trail-​side, they are rel­a­tively unknown ani­mals. There are many unan­swered ques­tions, conun­drums, bones of con­tention, and debates con­cern­ing snakes.

One of the largest of these mys­ter­ies is, “What do snakes do?” What do they do when they are not fright­en­ing human walk­ers, or eat­ing (which they may do only twice a year). Rat­tlesnakes bear live young, so are they social? Do they rec­og­nize a sib­ling or par­ent? How often do they have sex?

In other words, what is it like to be a snake?

Besides pure curios­ity, ulti­mately the rea­son sci­en­tists study snakes is to help them. Yes, rat­tlers deserve our pro­tec­tion along with every­thing else on Tumamoc that was there before humans came along. And Tumamoc, a wild-​land pre­serve sur­rounded by grow­ing urban devel­op­ment is a per­fect liv­ing lab­o­ra­tory to learn more about how humans and snakes can learn to co-​exist. The other half of this equa­tion is edu­cat­ing humans to respect snakes rather than fear them. With a lit­tle knowl­edge, any­one can become a snake aficionado.

If you see a rat­tler, or any other snake while walk­ing up the Tumamoc road, call Matt or Kristin and they’ll come right over, any time of day or night. They love snakes that much. The phone num­bers to call are on signs along the road:

(520) 245‑3786 or 465‑2717.

And if you ever have rea­son to be in the Matt Goode lab, don’t open any of the plas­tic cool­ers you’ll find lined up there on the floor: the Tecate is in the refrig­er­a­tor, not in those coolers.