Speaking of Wildlife by Jamie Proctor

Introducing Nagini, Severus, and Scales, our gray rat snakes

Welcome to the twenty-third column introducing the residents of Speaking of Wildlife: Ontario animals that can’t be released back into the wilderness due to permanent injuries or over-habituation to humans. Today we’ll be looking at not one nor two but THREE of our longest residents: Nagini, Severus, and Scales, our trio of gray rat snakes.

The gray rat snake is sometimes gray (in the south, with splotches; up here it’s a nigh-solid and glossy black), always a rat snake, and indisputably the biggest snake you can find in Canada, at just a little over two metres in length and with no venom worth mentioning to be found in a single centimeter of it.

It can be found generously smeared over much of eastern and central North America east of the Mississippi all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico, but its northern range terminates in southern Ontario where it lives much as it does elsewhere: frequently climbing in and out of trees.  Accordingly, it likes forested habitats or at least those with access to vertical spaces, which provide both escape routes and a delicious source of bird nests to round out its diet of small rodents, more small rodents, and mammals the size of small rodents, which it kills with constriction.

It is a close relative of both other rat snakes, the corn snakes, and the fox snakes, collectively sharing the genus Pantherophis, and like the fox snakes it is capable of faking a rattlesnake ‘rattle’ by vibrating its tail in dried leaves if it feels threatened.

Although common as a species, it’s considered threatened in its two Canadian strongholds of Ontario’s southwest (the Carolinian) and southeast (the Frontenac Axis), principally by habitat fragmentation and loss (beyond the normal troubles of having fewer and fewer places to live and those places being split apart into smaller and smaller pieces, they like to hibernate in groups and reuse the same hibernacula, so destroying one can endanger many snakes simultaneously); jerks who don’t like snakes (the perennial risk to all snakes); and cars running them over (the perennial risk to all wildlife that can fit under a tire).  Compounding the issue is that these snakes take at least seven years to reach sexual maturity, meaning a gray rat snake population in a tight spot can take a while to dig itself out and back to stability, and that’s time when things can get worse.

Unlike many of our other residents, our rat snakes began life in human captivity: Nagini and Severus were hatched at a reptile education company, and Scales at a wildlife facility, one of several he travelled through before finding a permanent home with us.

Nagini and Severus share a room, while Scales has his own home to prevent kerfuffles. They spend their days as most rat snakes do: coiled into tiny tight spaces, curled atop each other, spread out on branches, and (very occasionally) eating.

As to their wildlife education careers, they’re among our most impressive (long!) and well-travelled ambassadors and have spent time charming and educating a swathe of the public stretching from Niagara to Gatineau to who knows where.

Alas, their very occasional feeding schedule means that our rat snakes are some of my least-encountered coworkers – typically their meals are prepared and fed on days when I’m not at work. I meet them early in the morning to turn on their lights for a nice long day of warmth, and I see them at the end when I turn them off to cool down in the dark.

Still, even I have (once or twice) had occasion to handle them at the centre, most recently so someone else could have their hands free for a moment. I am the opposite of an expert or even practiced, but the sensation is very pleasant: cooler than you’d expect, and much dryer, and infinitely, carefully, politely strong.

You are holding a very gentle and smooth cross between a stack of ultimately powerful abdominals and a living ripple of water, as will be brought home to you ten seconds in, when Nagini has finished flowing into your pants pocket to inspect your phone and begins to pour back out of it, head-first. A nice and soft-spoken person, but somewhat too nosy when it comes to my personal electronics.

Speaking of Wildlife is a permanent sanctuary to non-releasable Ontario wildlife which delivers lasting educational experiences that foster appreciation and respect. The centre is open for private tours, and is available to be booked for special events and occasions. Get in touch by emailing info@speakingofwildlife.ca or visit the website at www.speakingofwildlife.ca.