Species-Specific Management (SSM)

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Eastern Timber Rattlesnake

The Eastern Timber Rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus) presents a management problem of complex dimensions. Most observers think that the species is endangered and that all efforts possible need to be made to protect the species. Persecuted for years, widely believed to have low reproductive potentials, the rattlesnake has persisted and fluorished during the settlement of the US. Urban expansion and rural development and extensive activity within the forests has brought increasing contact with humans.

Consumer Reports said (2005) that 8000 people are bitten by venomous snakes in the US each year and that 10 to 15 are fatal.

Loss of denning habitats is a major cause of now-apparent declines. Because they are locally migratory (returning to denning sites), human developments of lakes, highways, and residential areas have blocked such movement and destroyed many sites. Bounties are still paid in some areas and bounty hunting, commercial collection, sport hunting, organized round-ups, and behavioral disturbance are additional factors in the decline of the species.

Management includes

  1. intensive education of area users
  2. protection of denning sites
  3. experimental construction of sites potentially useful by sub-populations
  4. making such sites off-limits to hikers and others at key periods
  5. banning bounties on these snakes
  6. banning keeping these animals as "pets"
  7. providing controlled displays in zoos
  8. maintaining anti-venom supplies
  9. banning use of wild-caught rattlesnakes as human food
  10. managing (increasing) mice and shrews within areas most used by the snakes

Field workers in areas where snakes are abundant should wear long pants and heavy boots and be careful in placing hands, especially where snakes sun themselves.

If bitten, call for emergency help to get to a hospital as soon as possible, call to alert hospital to secure antivenin (there may be risk of serum sickness), remove constricting clothing rings etc. (swelling can be extreme), wash the bite, immobilize it, and keep it lower than the heart. Do not cut the bite or put ice on it or use a tourniquet - measures that do more harm than good. Do not move more than necessary.

Submitted by Robert H. Giles, Jr.

A contribution from a project funded in part by US Forest Service, Dr. Mike Rauscher, the Southern Appalachian Forest Hypertext Enclclopedia project, 2002

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This Web site is maintained by R. H. Giles, Jr.
Last revision July 10, 2002.