Den hunting on Wednesday!!

I'm super excited, this Wednesday I'm supposed to go den hunting for canebrakes! This will be my first time ever. I was gonna wait til I had some pics but ehh what the heck. Now hopefully I will find at least one so I don't let you guys down.

Excuse my ignorance, but what exactly are you looking for when searching for dens? Are you poking around in crevices or are there some previously located spots? Will there usually be a concentration of snakes out near the entrance?

Chris - What do you do if you find any? TRs are one of the species that I worked with in my time at KU and they are a species that is extremely sensitive to disturbance. If you capture them and handle them at all they will likely find a new home and never return to where they were caught, so doing this near a den could have deadly consequences if they cannot find a new den by the time winter arrives. I know that you won't be killing them intentionally so I'm not worried about that but I would urge you to look and not touch. Good hunting and I hope to see some pictures!

Also note that Canebrakes are on the threatened species list for MOST of the states in which it resides. You CAN NOT handle, disturb, or harrass these animals in accordance with state laws. You can take photographs from a distance, but even that can be iffy under the "harrassment" policy a lot of states have in place to protect them!

We are going to known dens. The plan is to go to these dens an hour after sunrise, so that the rocks around the dens will be warmed up enough for basking. No handling will be involved unless one is found on the near by hiking trail, then it will be a quick polite move off of the trail. Otherwise these snakes will only be captured by our cameras.

Awesome Chris. Also, I know I've said it before but Canebrakes were proven to not be a subspecies but just regular old TRs. As we agreed before, I believe it is just something like a kistachee or a miami pahse corn snake - still a TR but a slightly different phenotype. Also, as I've said before, it's only important to me because 1) the professor that I work for while at KU did the research and wrote the paper showing that canebrakes are not a subspecies and I have a great amount of respect for the man and 2) it is a chance for this Yankee to bust a southerner's balls. :D

Again, good luck and I hope to see pictures!

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Originally Posted by gsarchie

Awesome Chris. Also, I know I've said it before but Canebrakes were proven to not be a subspecies but just regular old TRs. As we agreed before, I believe it is just something like a kistachee or a miami pahse corn snake - still a TR but a slightly different phenotype. Also, as I've said before, it's only important to me because 1) the professor that I work for while at KU did the research and wrote the paper showing that canebrakes are not a subspecies and I have a great amount of respect for the man and 2) it is a chance for this Yankee to bust a southerner's balls. :D

Again, good luck and I hope to see pictures!

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Ha, bust my balls all you want, I'll still think they are different. No disrespect to your professor of course.

Fair enough man, fair enough.

Well no pics, it was too cool first thing this morning and by the time it had warmed up the friend I was going with, had to go to work. And unfortunately for me he knows where the dens are and I don't. So hopefully next week I'll get to go.

Sucks man, and good luck next week. I'll be waiting for pictures then!

I've been to the dens 4 times now and still no canebrakes. I was pretty excited the last time I went up because the park ranger told me a guy had found a 5' female just the day before, but no luck for me. I'm going up one last time for the season tomorrow. Wish me luck!!

Good luck, brother!

Is josh or Adam taking you or someone else?

Tomorrow? I'll be with another friend.

Next year I'm going to try to do some hiking around Crowders Mountain and see if I can find anything interesting.