By Pamela Johnson-Reporter-Herald Staff Writer- 01/01/2017
Loveland,
CO, 1/1/17- A solar farm under construction in west Loveland has
offered more than the promise of renewable energy. Researchers also got a
glimpse of how snake populations are faring near human development.
"It's
encouraging in trying to maintain biodiversity in an urban-suburban
setting," said Stephen Mackassy, a professor at the University of
Northern Colorado.
Mackassy
and a team of student researchers spent many hours last spring and
summer looking for snakes at the site near Mehaffey Park (west of Wilson
Avenue between 29th and 22nd Streets) where the city of Loveland is
building a solar farm.
Their
purpose was threefold — they wanted to save the snakes from being
killed and disrupted during construction, to study snake patterns and to
assist the city with environmental regulations.
The
students found 119 different snakes, mostly three species that are
nonvenomous and harmless — bull snakes, milk snakes and racer snakes.
With these, they captured them, tagged them with chips to follow their
future movements, and then released them nearby but away from
neighborhoods.
They couldn't take the snakes too far, less than a mile, from where they were found so they would be in their native terrain.
"We
wanted to help them, get them away from where the construction was
going on so they could survive the season," said Graham Dawson, one of
four students who worked on the project.
The team also found three rattlesnakes, which they did not release back into the wild.
Instead,
those snakes are now living, with many other reptiles, in Mackassy's
laboratory area at the Greeley campus, where students and professors
study snakes and uses for venom.
During
their field research, the students were surprised at how curious people
were about snakes and how supportive the public was of their efforts
when they explained their purpose.
"That
was a nice surprise," said Mackassy. "Snakes get a bad rap because some
are venomous and can cause problems for us ... People are fearful of
them.”
And
Mackassy said he also was surprised at the number of snakes they found
at the site because it is very near neighborhoods as well as the popular
Mehaffey Park.
"We
have a moderate diversity and abundance of these harmless and useful
parts of the ecosystem in an area that's very close to human
development," said Mackassy.
"I
wasn't convinced at the start that we'd find as many or the total
number of species ... They have a very important role in regulating
populations of small mammals and that means rats and mice primarily.”
The city of Loveland contacted Mackassy to help with snakes at the construction site for more than one reason.
Officials
wanted to make sure the snakes and workers were safe, that the snakes
did not exit the site en masse to nearby neighborhoods and to comply
with federal environmental standards, explained Tracy Turner-Naranjo,
environmental compliance administrator for the city.
The
solar farm is being built with money from the Federal Emergency
Management Agency as a renewable energy source to replace a
hydroelectric plant that was destroyed in the 2013 floods.
"There's a lot of snake activity there," said Turner-Naranjo. "That particular area is very nice habitat for snakes.”
So,
the city staff decided to work with snake experts to balance
environmental needs with safety of the workers, the neighborhood and the
snakes. They created a snake training video for the contractors and
employees on site to teach them of habitats, species and signs of
snakes.
They also called in Mackassy and his students, who worked to relocate the snakes on city-owned property.
The
project, Mackassy and Dawson said, allowed them to talk about how
important snakes are to the ecosystem and to preventing rodent-borne
diseases such as hantavirus and how to avoid conflict with snakes.
It also provided a baseline population for future study.
"That
we're in an urban-suburban area and we still have reasonable diversity
of these small animals is impressive and is a good indication that we
can maintain this diversity along the Front Range if we consider some
simple needs these animals have," said Mackassy.
"The whole project was designed to provide an inventory on what was there but also to develop best practices for the animals."
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