It’s officially snake season at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest!
Last week, we had to recall Jamie’s group off of Young’s Hill 5 times by 10:30am! Whoa!
Luckily, most of our snake encounters are with non-venomous snakes, like the one we caught in the greenhouse, which you’ll see in today’s video.
Caregiver Ellen identified this snake as a Western yellow-bellied racer, Coluber constrictor mormon! That’s quite a mouthful!
According to Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife, the Western racer (Coluber constrictor) is one of 11 subspecies of the North American racer. Racers occur in warm, dry open or brushy country. They are often observed streaking across roads. The racer holds its head and neck above the ground when hunting, and it may climb into shrubs (we found it sitting in the middle of a bamboo bush!). The diet of racers includes small mammals, reptiles, and insects.
We try our darndest to keep the chimps safe from venomous snakes. Our 4 acre outdoor enclosures are surrounded by snake fencing that extends several inches into the ground. Every day, before letting the chimps out onto Young’s Hill and the Bray, we do a perimeter check to ensure that the snake fencing is still in place. But there are certain types of snakes that have the ability to get around the snake fencing because they’re so tiny, so it’s up to us to catch them and remove them from the property – luckily they are usually non-venomous.
For more stories about our snake encounters, check out the following blog posts:
