Elusive Snake Found

Elusive Slug-Eating Snake Found on San Juan Island – Click to enlarge – Contributed photo

Here’s a cool story shared by Doug McCutchen of the Land Bank…

A San Juan Island couple, Maria Michaelson and Eben Shay have recorded the first documented sighting of the Sharp-tailed Snake on San Juan Island when their cat brought it home last Thursday evening. “It was a totally lucky find,” said Michaelson. “We had just learned about the snakes the day before and we were determined to find one, but didn’t expect for it to happen so quickly and certainly not this way.” The snake was carefully collected and will be donated to the University of Washington’s Burke Museum.

Sharp-tailed snakes are a small, secretive species that is presumed to be closely associated with Garry oak ecosystems. Less than five percent of Garry oak habitat remains from its historic extent which account in part for why the snakes are so infrequently encountered. The snakes, which specialize in eating slugs, spend almost all of their time undercover, in rotting logs, and possibly underground. They are smoother in appearance than the resident garter snakes and have grey/brown/reddish coloration with a sharp thorn-like scale at the end of their tale. Sharp-tailed snakes are non-venomous and very docile.

The first documented occurrence in San Juan County occurred in 2006 on Turtleback Mountain as Land Bank stewards Ruthie Dougherty and Doug McCutchen discovered one under a rock while constructing a trail. Like Michaelson, they recognized the snake as something different from the regular garter snakes encountered in the islands and snapped a picture in order to identify it. Washington State Fish and Wildlife officials confirmed it as the first sharp-tailed snake seen in Western Washington since the 1950s in addition to being the first in the San Juan Islands. The snakes are listed as an endangered species in Canada where they are known to occur on just four of the Gulf Islands and outskirts of Victoria. The snakes are more common towards the southern part of their range in Oregon and California.

Since the original discovery the Land Bank has been working closely with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to survey for the snakes, primarily on Orcas and San Juan islands. Two more snakes were found on Turtleback Mountain Preserve in 2013. The Land Bank and WDFW are also collaborating with the University of Washington’s Conservation Canine program to use their trained “scent detection” dogs to try locating the snakes.

“To find a previously unknown species on a well-populated, small island at this point in time is very exciting,” said WDFW Biologist Ruth Milner. “We are very interested in learning more about this snake and welcome any sightings people can report.” The Land Bank and WDFW will hold an informational meeting later this summer/fall. Contact Ruth Milner or Doug McCutchen if you are interested in helping survey your property for this elusive species. We hope to search for the snakes throughout the archipelago and will welcome participation from home owners in all kinds of habitats, regardless of whether or not they are associated with Garry oak areas.

Check out these links for more information:

Sharptailed Snake Identification (pdf)
Paper on the 2006 sighting (pdf)
Good video on Sharp-tailed Snake Identification

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