Learning to love eastern indigo snakes

Imagine walking across a field in southern Georgia and encountering a giant seven-foot black snake basking in the sun, its scales shining with a rainbow of iridescence. Your first reaction might be fear, but to many, this is a beautiful sight. And to some, like the conservationists of the Orianne Society, it is a welcome encounter with a magnificent but threatened creature that they work tirelessly to protect. 

The Orianne Society, one of Zoo Atlanta’s conservation partners, “works to conserve imperiled reptiles and amphibians using science, applied conservation and education.” What is now a broad mission that aspires to help a variety of threatened species in the Southeast and beyond, began with a simple encounter between a girl and a snake. Dr. Thomas Kaplan’s daughter, Orianne, was struck by the beauty of an eastern indigo snake upon meeting one at a zoo. After learning that the species was endangered, she asked her father if he could save the indigo snake. Rather than dismissing his daughter’s optimism, he took action, reaching out to Dr. Chris Jenkins, who joined Dr. Kaplan in beginning the conservation effort now named the Orianne Society. 

Eastern indigo snakes are the largest non-venomous snake in the United States, reaching up to eight feet long. These snakes once dominated the longleaf pine ecosystem in the Southeast, with males roaming huge territories of 500 to 1,000 acres, eating a wide variety of prey, including even venomous snakes. Their lives are closely linked to another vulnerable species, the gopher tortoise (our state reptile), as indigo snakes often call gopher tortoise burrows home. Indigo snakes are now federally threatened in Georgia and other states. 

The longleaf pine ecosystem is also threatened and has been reduced to a mere 10 percent of its historic range. This vital habitat faces an onslaught of pressures, including logging to make way for tree farms, fragmentation due to development, and degradation from fire suppression. The stresses of habitat loss and degradation can compound other problems for snakes as well, making them more vulnerable to pathogens such as snake fungal disease and the emerging snake lung parasite. 

From the start, the Orianne Society understood the critical link between habitat and species conservation. They purchased land in south Georgia that exists today as the Orianne Indigo Snake Preserve, a longleaf pine habitat critical to indigo snakes, gopher tortoises, and other species. They regularly conduct indigo snake population surveys of these lands and surrounding habitats, but their efforts do not stop with monitoring. Using a “landscape-based approach,” they focus on habitat preservation first, but they will take whatever action is needed, including species reintroduction. 

The Orianne Center for Indigo Conservation is a breeding center for eastern indigo snakes that seeks to raise snakes for reintroduction into the wild. This is where Zoo Atlanta comes in! Snakes raised at the Orianne Center come to Zoo Atlanta as hatchlings, living and growing here for one to two years, until they reach a size that will help them escape predation. Since 2010, over 150 eastern indigo snakes hatched at the Orianne Center have been released in the Conecuh National Forest in Alabama, a place where indigo snakes had been absent since the 1950s. Over 100 of these snakes were raised at Zoo Atlanta. 

Today, the Orianne Society works to conserve not just eastern indigo snakes, but other rare and threatened amphibian and reptile species, as well as their habitats. They focus on protecting and restoring Longleaf Savannas, Great Northern Forests, and Appalachian Highlands. Whether planting trees, conducting prescribed burns, or creating buffers around waterways, their efforts help save species like bog turtles, eastern hellbenders, timber rattlesnakes, and many others, from extinction. The dedicated staff and volunteers of the Orianne Society work with a variety of partners, including Zoo Atlanta, to tailor their conservation actions to each species’ needs. 

Amphibians and reptiles, famously called “foul and loathsome animals” by Linneaus, are sometimes feared and even despised. However, they are critical to the biodiversity of our planet, filling important roles in ecosystems all over the globe. Zoo Atlanta and The Orianne Society share a mission to save wildlife and their habitats, and we are committed to working together to save eastern indigo snakes. As always, when you support the Zoo, you are supporting our conservation work as well. Maybe next time you cross paths with a snake, you will feel a sense of respect, rather than fear, and maybe even (from a safe distance) admire that beautiful iridescence as well. 

Leslie Goebel
Exhibit Interpreter