A critically endangered snake species, the Masters' snake, has been rediscovered in western Victoria after being lost to science for over 30 years. Working with farmers, zoologists have identified a population of this small, copper-patched snake in an area that has remained untouched by recent fires.
At Telopea Downs in western Victoria, farmers are working alongside zoologists to identify and preserve a small, rare snake that has been lost to science for more than 30 years. The critically endangered, mildly venomous Masters' snake looks a bit like a miniature eastern brown at just 30 centimeters long. It has distinctive copper patches just behind the head and was once common in Victoria's Big Desert Wilderness Park.
Zoos Victoria senior biologist in herpetology Nick Clemann said in the late 70s and early 80s, it was one of the most common snakes surveyed by his late colleague John Coventry. 'After a period of a few decades with no reports of that species, we were a bit worried,' he said. 'We set out to try and find patches of the same kind of similar vegetation that hadn't had recent fires,' Mr. Clemann said. 'We were very fortunate that some of the farmers in the district, some of the landholders, let us onto their properties, and explained to us … that had not had a fire in many decades. 'We installed our traplines here with the blessing of the farmer and fairly quickly, we got our target species.' He said until fairly recently, it was the only known population of the Masters' snake surviving in Victoria. Mr. Clemann said an increase in planned burns and bushfires due to climate change meant there was now less land left untouched by fire where the Masters' snake could live. 'We believe that historical fire regimes in the Mallee ... were such that areas burned but lots of areas didn't burn for extensive periods,' he said. 'We're also doing a lot more fuel reduction burning, and so collectively between the wildfires and the fuel reduction burning, very few parts of the Big Desert get to be old growth.' The long, dry Mallee summers and dry lightning events have caused several recent wildfires in the Murray-Sunset and Big Desert national parks. While searching for the Masters' snake, researchers have also found other threatened animals including skinks, frogs, goannas, spiders, and rodents. Mr. Clemann said searching for the creatures involved 'pitfall traps', consisting of a long piece of netting mesh strung over 10 plastic buckets buried in the sand over a 50-meter distance. 'It causes small animals to bump into the wire, follow it along, and fall into a bucket, which is checked and emptied the next morning. 'It is a very simple system, and often we find with reptile work that simple is better,' Mr. Clemann said. 'The full spectrum of lizards fall into pitfall traps, so we're getting really valuable data on the biological diversity of the vegetation on these farms, and amongst that biological diversity are other threatened species like the Port Lincoln Snake and the Bardick. Steve Enticott is the co-founder of conservation non-for-profit Carbon Landscapes and also owns land in the Big Desert. 'For us, it was validation. We bought this site knowing that it had a lot of flora on site, that it was perfect for a lot of these species,' he said. 'Back in the 1970s we used to come up to the Mallee and Wyperfeld and the Wimmera … I've had a deep connection to Wyperfeld and spotting Mallee fowl and all that sort of thing.' He has become an enthusiastic participant in the Masters' snake surveys, often going out to empty the traps with the conservation team. 'Watching discovering wildlife that's been under their feet for decades and they've never known, and then watching this passion develop in them,' he said. 'All of a sudden, they're the ones saying, 'When are you coming back out, what are you catching this morning, tell me what's going on?' 'So there's this engagement with nature on the wild parts of their farms that is wonderful to see and we're hoping that will get passed on through the generations. 'We've got a changing climate. That means that fire is more likely, more severe when it does happen, so by far this snake is not safe yet,' he said. 'We've got a lot of work to do to find where they are, protect those habitats, try and find more populations, and potentially in the future to reintroduce them to areas where they've been lost.' But as well as sustaining an endemic species and the balance of the ecosystem with it, there is also a personal motivation for him as a zoologist. 'This snake is a connection to my dear friends and mentors, like John Coventry and Peter Robinson,' he said. 'I can get people who normally have a pretty poor reaction to snakes, and they can look at that and say, 'Oh yeah, okay, that one's actually kind of cute'
Masters' Snake Conservation Biodiversity Climate Change Wildlife Bushfires
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