Janelle VanderBeek is a coordinator at the Wildlife Rescue Association of B.C. She says she has never seen anything like this before. VanderBeek says the excitement started on Wednesday when a dozen garter snakes were dropped off at the group’s Burnaby Care Center by a biologist who had rescued them from a dike at a Boundary Bay construction site.
That was just the first batch of reptiles the center would end up getting. On Thursday, the staff came to work and found even more snakes left on the doorstep. “We got into the care centre in the morning, and we found the same biologist from the day before with about 350 snakes in buckets and bins waiting on our doorstep,” Vanderbeek said.
After a thorough count, the staff realized they had about 500 garter snakes, ranging in size from 4 inches (10 cm) to about 39 inches (1 meter). All of the snakes were examined and placed in groups of 20 in plastic tubs with damp wood shavings along with a shallow dish of distilled water. At that time, according to the center’s Facebook page, they had found about a dozen snakes requiring treatment for injuries sustained at the den site.
The center had an update posted on their Facebook page today, saying the garter snakes were doing well and have “finally stopped arriving and at the final count, we have 518 snakes. Most are now in hibernation but about 25 are being treated for various injuries in heated escape-proof tanks.”
The staff will now have to keep the snakes in a cool environment until they can be released in the spring, just providing water. Vanderbeek explained that hibernation, which is what most people think snakes do, is actually called brumation. It is an example of dormancy, similar to hibernation but involves different metabolic processes.
Vanderbeek points out that snakes don’t live off stored fat like bears do but reduce their energy use through the winter months, allowing their body temperature to drop. She says it is common for garter snakes to congregate by the hundreds, and sometimes even a thousand or more in dens to sleep through the winter weather. When they awaken, they will mate and then disperse.
It will please environmentalist to know the snakes are going back to where they were found, once the temperature reaches 14 degrees Centigrade. Steven Lan, the director of engineering in Delta says once the construction work on the dike is complete, the rocks removed prior to working on the area will be replaced. Then the snakes will be brought back to the same spot and released in the spring. “The snakes will repopulate the area …and basically re-establish their den site,” he said.
