The Cold Blooded News

The Newsletter of the Colorado Herpetological Society

Volume 28, Number 4; April, 2001

Garter Snakes

by Gail Watson

Reprinted from Ark'Type, the Newsmagazine of the WSPCR (the Westcoast Society for the Protection and Conservation of Reptiles), February/March 2001.

Amanda gave us an interesting article on garter snakes in the last issue. Twenty-five years ago I had a group of these nice little animals as pets, so I thought I would share some of my experiences.

During 1973, a new subdivision was built a block south of my home in Lynn Valley, in a wooded area alongside a small creek. As clearing of the area progressed, a number of garter snakes began appearing on our road. My youngest daughter, Susan, found the first one on her way home from school. It was a tiny baby, just a few inches long. Susan named him "Hubert" and we made a temporary home for him in a small box. I had been very interested in snakes since I was a kid back in the 1940's, but had only had a chance to hold a couple until Hubert appeared on the scene. I wanted to keep him as a pet, but didn't have a clue as to what his requirements and needs were. 0ver the next week or so I offered him pieces of raw stewing beef and hamburger because I didn't know any better. He wisely turned up his nose at all of it, so I decided we were going to have to let him go before he starved.

North Vancouver, however, is the slug capitol of the universe and on the evening before his release I found a small grey slug on a leaf. It looked like a perfect Hubert-sized snack so I brought it in and layed it on the grass we had spread on the floor of his cardboard box. I knew that, after all the frustration of trying to get him to eat normal food, he would refuse this sticky offering for sure. So, naturally, he ate it. And he ate slugs and worms from then on for the rest of his fairly long life.

Before long, Susan found several other larger snakes on the street, so we built a big wood and glass enclosure for them with clean sand for the substrate, as the experts call it. Susan named the new ones "Rosebert" and "Wilbert" and so on. The foundlings eventually totaled about five, but as time passed the number of snakes in the enclosure began to multiply until it finally reached thirty-three. These occasions were where I first saw the mating behaviour and birth of garter snakes. It was a terrifically exciting moment when I first looked through the glass one day and found several baby snakes struggling out of their clear, glistening little birth sacs. (No I don't know what the experts call them!)

Amanda wasn't exaggerating when she mentioned the high metabolism of garter snakes. These ones, babies and adults, were active all of the time and they would eat virtually every day. I was constantly collecting slugs in my neighbours' yards. One night I came home with 500 slugs of every size and the thirty-three snakes ate all of them. I had attached a long thin tree branch on a slant across the back of their home and whenever the snakes realized it was meat-time they would come up the branch to take their food from my fingers.

Amanda's references to garter snakes' colour variations, odour and biting were also accurate. These ones ranged from the usual black, yellow and red, to solid brown, to an overall brown with an underlying pinkish tinge (which produced the name Rosebert) and on to a really beautiful solid olive green. The pungent-smelling substance released by garter snakes in the wild is said to be a defense against enemies. I believe it would be because it certainly is a turn-off for human beings! But I have found that, once a garter snake realizes it is not in danger, this defense mechanism disappears. And I have had more people tell me about being bitten by garter snakes than any other non-venomous North American snake. I was bitten by a few wild ones, but they get over that too once they know you are not attacking them.

In those days I didn't think about any possible negative aspects involved with the collecting of these wild snakes. And when I thought about it later on, I felt that we hadn't done anything improper or immoral. They had all been driven out of their natural habitat by the development and were homeless and likely to end up as a meal for a cat. In any case, a UBC professor got me into domestically bred corn and gopher snakes, and I eventually released Hubert and his pals in a secluded area safe from cars, cats, and progress. I'm sure their descendants are still there, eating slugs and reproducing.