MILWAUKEE — Nearby Nature Milwaukee is tracking how the Butler’s garter snake population is growing in the city.
This specific types is distinct to parts of the Midwest and Canada.
Mars Patterson, primary land steward for Nearby Nature Milwaukee, is leading a group of volunteers in looking for the snakes.
“The reason we are doing this now, starting from May to July, is that this is their breeding season, so it’s likely we are able to observe more,” said Patterson.
Once the snakes are discovered, the group tapes the gender, the size, and marks it to ensure they are not stated.
Before 2000, there were issues about whether the Butler’s garter snake would have the ability to endure in Hopkins Hollow, a nature space at the north end of the 30th Street Corridor.
That’s why they were briefly moved from the location to enable the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District to get rid of the concrete channels in the watershed.
(Spectrum News 1/Phillip Boudreaux)
Patterson said the snakes were then gone back to the website after the building and construction
“Now that there’s a population out here that gives us more support to conserve this space because they are calling this area home,” said Patterson.
As a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee trainee and Nearby Nature intern, Hassan Richardson said he thinks it’s a fantastic experience since he is studying both preservation and ecological science.
“Basically, practice conservation in especially urban spaces. It’s growing more but, in the past, it wasn’t really that common,” said Richardson.
For Patterson, this work is very important since it is a suggestion that human beings, plants and animals require each other.
“I know it might seem farfetched when you are living your regular life and you are trying to go to work to take care of your family. ‘Why should I care about this?’” said Patterson. “[The answer is] because it does affect you in the long run, caring about the waterway, caring about the plants. It’s all a part of it.”
After taping the details they require, Patterson then launches the snake back into the wild.
Patterson said this research study is simply one method she intends to get the neighborhood more immersed in nature.
