The Louisiana pinesnake – Rare, elusive, and at the center of a restoration partnership

The Louisiana pinesnake (Pituophis ruthveni) is one of the rarest snakes in the country. 

Photo Credit

Christopher Schalk, USDA Forest Service

A young Louisana pinesnake, just before it is released on the Kisatchie National Forest in Louisiana. The snakes are not aggressive towards humans. 

In 2006, Josh Pierce, a USDA Forest Service wildlife biologist, began building a database of snake sightings. The database draws from historical records, published literature, roadkill reports, incidental captures, and all other records that can be verified. It now has almost 700 unique records of Louisiana pinesnakes.

“We’re at a point with the dataset where we can start answering questions needed by the Kisatchie National Forest, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and other partners,” says Pierce.

For the past 13 years, zoos have been raising Louisiana pinesnakes in captive breeding facilities and releasing them in a restored longleaf pine forest on the Catahoula Ranger District of the Kisatchie National Forest in Louisiana. The snakes are raised by the Memphis Zoo, Audubon Zoo, Ellen Trout Zoo, and the Fort Worth Zoo. 

Before release, the young snakes are outfitted with a passive integrated transponder tag and added to the database.

 “Our goal is to provide partners with information on where this species stands at the current site and how to best allocate the 100 snakes per year that the zoos produce,” says Pierce.

About 400 snakes have been released at the site on the Catahoula Ranger District. The researchers estimate that the population, including released and their offspring, is about 100. 

“We’re planning simulation models to project whether the population is self-sustaining at 100 individual snakes,” says Forest Service researcher Chris Schalk. “There’s no baseline information – the number of snakes that might have lived there historically is unknown.” 

In the 1990s, Forest Service researcher Craig Rudolph, now retired, began monitoring the snakes in ten Texas counties. Monitoring in two counties continues, but no snakes have been seen at either site since 2012. 

“The Louisiana pinesnake is really hard to detect and observe in the wild,” says Schalk. “It spends up to 70% of its time underground, so you can imagine trying to monitor it.” 

“There’s evidence to suggest that almost all of the wild populations of this snake are declining,” says Pierce, who recently contributed to a study on using camera traps for monitoring Louisiana pinesnakes. 

For now, the population on the Catahoula Ranger District seems to be doing well. The snakes are benefitting from a long history of collaborative conservation – for both the Louisiana pinesnake and the longleaf pine. 

At the reintroduction site, most of the tall trees are longleaf pine. The ground is covered in grasses and flowers, and the soil is sandy. In short, it is a perfect home for many species including the Louisiana pinesnake and their main food, pocket gophers. 

Humans have long had a role in creating healthy longleaf pine ecosystems. Before colonial settlers arrived on the continent, Indigenous peoples stewarded the land with fire. Fire remains a critically important tool – longleaf pines need frequent, low-intensity fire to be healthy. 

Today, managers on the Kisatchie National Forest use fire to maintain and restore the longleaf ecosystem. 

“This work highlights the multidisciplinary nature of species conservation and the multiple partnerships that make it happen,” says Schalk. 

The Louisiana pinesnake is federally listed as threatened. 

For more information, email Chris Schalk at christopher.schalk@usda.gov or Josh Pierce at josh.b.pierce@usda.gov.