# Snakes in Retention Pond?



## BenjaminBoa (Mar 4, 2012)

Hey guys, so we just moved into a new house next to a creek, we have a massive retention pond (about 30ft by 20ft) that drops down 3 foot, is surrounded by a rock wall, it is broken into three areas, a high land where the soil and plants are dry/normal for our area, mid land where the soil is moist but never pooling and the low land which is all cat tails and 6in-12in of water most of the time. We get a lot of wild birds and hundreds of frogs and toads there, but just recently I started noticing a lot of field mice living there as well. We are already planning on seeding the yard with lady bugs and praying mantids to keep the bug numbers under control and we have plenty of wild bats here as well but the frog and mouse population in the yard is a little alarming. Before winter it was like a toad plague, there were more toads than bugs in the yard ranging from the size of a penny to fully grown toads, they thrive in our yard and I only ever see an occasional crow eat them. 

I have a friend who lives on two acres of pond land, he has brown water snakes, garter snakes, and wild rat snakes all over his yard. I was thinking when the weather gets warmer I'll go catch a few adults and some of the many babies and release them in the yard. I might fatten up some of the corn and water snakes since, even though there are plenty of wild mice, I'd worry about the crows picking some of the smaller guys off before they'd be big enough to impact the mouse population.

What do you guys think? Will the snakes work to keep toad and mouse populations down? I love toads but there were literally so many in august that I couldn't even back out of my drive way without running over one. When would be the best time to go hunt for these snakes, I don't know when these guys leave the hibernaculum but I'd assume its near by because his yard is crawling with snakes, every month I get called over to go collect a big angry rat snake who found its way onto the porch and is trying to eat his mom XD. Also is there a place I can just buy some native snakes just like one can buy lady bugs and praying mantids for pest control? Considering how heavily planted our yard is I doubt the snakes would be seen all that much, there is dry and wet land and we live on a pretty big lot so I don't imagine the garters at the least leaving the lot too much, our land is on a hill and the neighbors are more up hill with short grass and dont seem to have many mice or toads in their yard, I think our yard is just infested because of the wet land + being next to a creek+ the huge amounts of available food (wild and bred sunflowers, berries, a small apple tree.) Our township only allows native species in our yard, something to do with the retention pond meeting biological regulations. So the people in our neighborhood living on the creek on the opposite side of the road or the neighbors just next to us, and of course us as well, can not spray certain pesticides, pesticides sprayed can not be on or in the water sources and plants must be native species if put in or around the retention pond and creek.  

So the snakes I shouldn't be subjected to any pesticides, and at least the ones in our yard wouldn't be bothered. Everyone in my family loves snakes, my mom doesn't like them but she grew up in trinidad with 20ft + snakes in their yard, as far as shes concerned these little "baby" snakes in Illinois don't count as snakes. My boas however she gets nervous around XD my step brother, sister and step dad all love snakes. I do most of the yard work and like our old house, I would scour the yard, bag any snakes in the lawn, mow the lawn and then release them. I've had snakes since I  was seven years old so even wild little garters are precious little gems to me <3


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## Steven Valys (Mar 4, 2012)

so why would you want to throw off the balance of nature by bringing in more animals?  Maybe there is a real good reason the toad and mouse population is so large.  Get rid of toads and you might be overrun with mosquitoes and cockroaches. Without the mice, more food will be available and the rats will move in.  Then what?


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## BenjaminBoa (Mar 4, 2012)

<_< Stay on topic, this isn't about whether or not its "okay" to transfer some native species to the yard. I've already taken all of the jargon you're ranting about into consideration, as well as took it up with our inspector and contractor, so instead of turning this into a debate about hypothetical apocalyptic take overs of the native kind lets stay on topic. My question was

A) would the three snake breeds work to keep the field mouse and toad populations down.
B) When do snakes usually come out of their hibernaculatum in illinois, and when is the best time to go hunt for babies.
C) Are there any websites or stores where one can purchase snake species for pest control like you can with mantids, ladybugs, and even coyotes.


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## hamhock 74 (Mar 4, 2012)

C) Are there any websites or stores where one can purchase snake species for pest control like you can with mantids, ladybugs, and even coyotes


My first thought was, "Woah snakes for coyote control? That's messed up!"


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## BenjaminBoa (Mar 4, 2012)

lmao no, I mean you can buy mantids and ladybugs for insect pest control and your township can pay to have coyotes captured by animal control released in areas where there are infestations of rabbits, mice, rats, and geese. So I was wondering if there were any places where one could purchase native rat snakes to control field mouse populations. Everyone who I know who lived on a farm would say how they'd let the snakes eat all the mice they wanted but I have yet to find anywhere selling snakes. Its probably because people are so scared of them >_>;


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## hamhock 74 (Mar 4, 2012)

Any breeders or reptile expos occuring in your area? For the quantity you want, you might have to resort to breeding your own.


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## Steven Valys (Mar 4, 2012)

A) would the three snake breeds work to keep the field mouse and toad populations down.

Yes, but most likely won't be noticable for a long time

B) When do snakes usually come out of their hibernaculatum in illinois, and when is the best time to go hunt for babies.

when the temps warm up in spring, see what time of the year your species birth, then hunt at night for rats, morning for others

C) Are there any websites or stores where one can purchase snake species for pest control like you can with mantids, ladybugs, and even coyotes.

no


stayed on topic for you

Reactions: Like 1


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## Shrike (Mar 4, 2012)

No, I don't think they will control the rodent population to any degree that you will notice.  There is no guarantee that they will even remain in the vicinity to establish a breeding population.  Speaking generally, the time at which snakes emerge from their hibernacula varies with the weather.  It's even possible to get a random sighting on warm days in the dead of winter (this is especially common with garters and northern brown snakes).  Once the weather begins to consistently warm up, they'll emerge with breeding on their minds.  Around late march or April would be my guess.  

As an aside, I don't think the corn snake's established range in IL extends to Geneva.  Are you sure that's what you're seeing?  My guess would be either black rat snakes or black racers.


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## pitbulllady (Mar 4, 2012)

BenjaminBoa said:


> <_< Stay on topic, this isn't about whether or not its "okay" to transfer some native species to the yard. I've already taken all of the jargon you're ranting about into consideration, as well as took it up with our inspector and contractor, so instead of turning this into a debate about hypothetical apocalyptic take overs of the native kind lets stay on topic. My question was
> 
> A) would the three snake breeds work to keep the field mouse and toad populations down.
> B) When do snakes usually come out of their hibernaculatum in illinois, and when is the best time to go hunt for babies.
> C) Are there any websites or stores where one can purchase snake species for pest control like you can with mantids, ladybugs, and even coyotes.


I'm not sure WHY anyone would WANT to curb the toad population, when amphibian populations worldwide are declining.  Be greatful that you HAVE toads; they used to be common where I live in my childhood, but it's been at least 15 years since I've seen or heard a wild toad.  Toads eat insects, including many insect pest species.  Toads have cyclical population "explosians" from time to time, but keep in mind that most of the polywogs that make it out of the water won't survive their first year.  If you have mice and toads, the natural predators will eventually "get wind" of it and move in, so you will have snakes there eventually.  I'm often asked to supply Eastern King Snakes to property owners to control venomous snakes, but in truth, relocating snakes to eat pest species often does not work because the snakes' natural homing instinct will cause them to try to get back to where they came from, and they won't stick around. I have never seen any dealers selling snakes specifically for pest control, and I have ABSOLUTELY never heard of anyone selling COYOTES for pest control, when coyotes are considered pests in many areas and are indeed problem invasive animals in much of the US, far outside their original range!  Brown Water Snakes aren't native to Illinois, by the way, but are exclusively a southern coastal species.  

pitbulllady


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## ZephAmp (Mar 4, 2012)

From your description I'm surprised there aren't already snakes in the area. With so many other species occurring there must be something that hinders or prevented snakes from becoming established there, and until that element is found and corrected, it would be foolish to try and reintroduce them. For example, I could throw hundreds of milkweed bugs into my backyard but until I plant milkweed they will not survive there. 
I think you should survey your retention pond area in the spring for snakes. There may very well be a hearty population of snakes there and their summer dispersal would have prevented you from finding them before. Finding den sites is a very good way of measuring the population, though keep in mind mostly adult/juvenile snakes (at least with garter snakes) use dens so whatever you see of a population at a den will not include the numerous other babies/yearlings that overwintered in other places.


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## BenjaminBoa (Mar 4, 2012)

ZephAmp said:


> From your description I'm surprised there aren't already snakes in the area. With so many other species occurring there must be something that hinders or prevented snakes from becoming established there, and until that element is found and corrected, it would be foolish to try and reintroduce them. For example, I could throw hundreds of milkweed bugs into my backyard but until I plant milkweed they will not survive there.
> I think you should survey your retention pond area in the spring for snakes. There may very well be a hearty population of snakes there and their summer dispersal would have prevented you from finding them before. Finding den sites is a very good way of measuring the population, though keep in mind mostly adult/juvenile snakes (at least with garter snakes) use dens so whatever you see of a population at a den will not include the numerous other babies/yearlings that overwintered in other places.


Pretty sure there probably were snakes here and the previous owners have had them removed or something. That or this area just didn't have snakes and then when the ponds and creeks were made or caused all of these other widespread populations moved in while there were not many snakes around to become established. I mean amphibians and rodents are EVERYWHERE, snakes however not so much. They seem to have pockets from my experience. Take my town Geneva, I have two friends who have tons of garters in their yards, and I have friends with nearly the same environment who have never seen a garter snake in the wild before. And I have a strong feeling that it has to do with people getting scared and having them exterminated or putting snake traps/ repellants in their yards and what not. I mean Illinois used to have a very large rat snake population and there was a small rattle snake population here as well, as people started developing and killing off snakes the populations dropped until now you just find a few here and there unless you go south more. 

My old house had a small gartersnake population from some 20 snakes I released into our yard, very small though I would only come across a shed skin or see the tip of a tail once a month or so. So like I said if I had to make a conjecture it would be that snakes have a much harder time finding and populating areas that are heavily developed because so many people are scared of them. (those twenty snakes mentioned earlier were all babies born from a single mother snake I caught years ago.)

Pitbulllady- Trust me there is NO shortage of toads in Illinois, if you go for a walk even in the middle of Chicago in the really early morning or a little past midnight you can find tons of them hopping around as if they thought they were pigeons, when I was at Northern Illinois I would find toads sitting under some of the lower street lights munching on stunned moths, and I do not know a single person from Illinois who does not have toads at their house. In the spring you go anywhere near a body of water and there are baby toads like 17 year cicadas.. Frogs I could believe, aside from around the major rivers and deeper ponds I don't see frogs but there are toads in abundance here, but this house has them in larger quantities than I've seen anywhere, save in the spring when the babies all come out. If you want some I could ship a good 20 or more out to you easy. I have a feeling they're here because they come over the the retention pond for moisture or to mate, fall in and then can not figure out how to climb out of the 3ft rock wall, its so heavily planted they could easily hide from birds or other animals. Eventually when they get big enough or wander enough they probably find the stairs or a stray vine that they can climb out on and wander around the yard. 

As for the mice I'm still trying to figure out why they are thriving, though considering they have space, and probably access to not only berries, fruits, and seed but human garbage... there is probably not a special "thing" about our land that draws them in. It seems like this area has a high mouse population, just about all of my friends from Geneva and the surrounding towns has had mice in their house before. Maybe it is the lack of predators, considering I have yet to see a coyote, fox, or hawk in my area.

As for Coyotes, I'm sorry that you ABSOLUTELY have never heard of that, well now you can say you have. If you want an example Carrilon in Plainfield Illinois got rid of their coyote and fox populations because citizens were scared of them. About ten years later the rabbit, mouse, and canadian geese populations were so high gardens were being destroyed, and peoples houses were being infested with mice, the same people who had never so much as seen a mouse on their property, now they're re-introducing coyotes and foxes back into the area.

Lake Thunderbird, just south of Hennapen(sp) IL got rid of their coyote and mountain lion population, there is now an estimated 300 deer per acre, mice rampent, and rabbits everywhere. They've re-introduced coyotes back but they can not keep up with the rabbits and coyotes don't usually take down deer, just scare them off. It has gotten so bad that they are debating using food spiked with a chemical agent to sterilize the deer and rabbits. Oh and the cool news is a mountain lioness has been spotted twice now in the forest not more than a mile behind the lake, they're not completely eradicated from IL it seems.

As for the snakes, there are hundres of snakes called "brown water snake" but go check the DNR Nerodia sipedon, or northern brown water snake is a native species of snake, and quite common here, especially around the great lakes. They were endangered for a while but have made a good come back, my grandparents have one who is always swimming around their dock catching fish and frogs super early in the morning, they are very graceful swimmers despite having the body of a fat ball python.

Relocating snakes does "work" while they wont always stay on the property they are placed in for food or what ever they will hone in on where ever there old hibernaculum is. While I've never relocated snakes with the hope of them staying before I have removed rat snakes from my friend's house once or twice, I've also removed garters from my other friend's house who planned on exterminating them. I've talked about this in a previous post on some other thread, I kept the snakes as pets for a while and released them in my yard later on. For the first few weeks I would find them basking on our fire wood rack early in the morning, after a month I hardly ever saw them but knew they were there because I'd find new sheds from time to time, or occasionally see a tail move through grass. If it is a substantial distance from their old territory, more than twenty miles I highly doubt they'll return to their old homes. If they arn't wanted where they are I see no reason not to move them anyway. I also transplant wasps, which as you know bees and wasps have an extreme homing instinct, but there are ways around that, such as keeping them indoors for a few weeks and letting the colony grow some more before chilling them again and moving them to their new nesting grounds. Occasionally you get a few who never come back but the nests almost always grow quite large up until it frosts over. Also if relocating snakes was near impossible, aside from my own experience, moving groups of almost endangered snakes to forrest reserves and things of that nature wouldn't be done. A lady I used to give birds I found who were damaged or had fallen from their nest, would see my pet snakes and tell me about snakes exterminators caught and brought to them (thankfully) instead of killing them or poisoning the yard. Considering the large amounts of garters she described, roaming around the preserve I would assume that there are successes, like I said they wont always stay in one little area but if you're a good 20+ miles from the yard they were found in I doubt they're going back over there.

Shrike- My first post is mistaken, they are black rat snakes. I'm so used to talking about Corn snakes from the pet trade I guess lol.
Perhaps they wont to a noticeable degree :/ but its worth a shot, I hate using traps and pesticides and that sort of thing, at work I capture and move small wasp nests from work because my manager will spray them lol. She thinks I'm nuts, but I prefer to use more natural ways of hindering pests if I can. Our old house we'd buy 3 praying mantis eggs, two containers of lady bugs, and a vial of parasitic wasps each year, you'd be surprised but the years we did that we had very few pests in the gardens. Unfortunately the mantids didn't stick around, once they hit that adult size they'd all be found in the forrest a few blocks from our house, where I assume they went to mate.

Ideally I'd like to move 3-4 adults and some babies to our yard, hopefully they'll see all the food and stick around, or come back once they've mated and over some years establish a small population. If it fails, so be it. But I'd like to give it a shot before going chemical. So from what you're saying I should perhaps wait until after spring so that they are not super focused on breeding and might actually go "oh foods!" and stick around for a bit?

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hamhock 74 said:


> Any breeders or reptile expos occuring in your area? For the quantity you want, you might have to resort to breeding your own.


I'd be worried about them being a non native, pet- species. I'd be more comfortable releasing something I've seen and know live in the wild. However I HAVE seen a guy who sells baby Northern brown water snakes, they look identical to the type around here. I could just capture a few, probe them, keep two females and a male, breed a few clutches, fatten them up and then release them. And Avoid handling or anything of that nature so they don't become accustomed to people. For the brown water snakes and/or Garters I'd probably set up a few large tanks with prey already in them, like small fish, tadpoles, and worms in or by the water bowl, maybe throw in a pinky mouse or two every once in a while.


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## pitbulllady (Mar 5, 2012)

BenjaminBoa said:


> Pretty sure there probably were snakes here and the previous owners have had them removed or something. That or this area just didn't have snakes and then when the ponds and creeks were made or caused all of these other widespread populations moved in while there were not many snakes around to become established. I mean amphibians and rodents are EVERYWHERE, snakes however not so much. They seem to have pockets from my experience. Take my town Geneva, I have two friends who have tons of garters in their yards, and I have friends with nearly the same environment who have never seen a garter snake in the wild before. And I have a strong feeling that it has to do with people getting scared and having them exterminated or putting snake traps/ repellants in their yards and what not. I mean Illinois used to have a very large rat snake population and there was a small rattle snake population here as well, as people started developing and killing off snakes the populations dropped until now you just find a few here and there unless you go south more.
> 
> My old house had a small gartersnake population from some 20 snakes I released into our yard, very small though I would only come across a shed skin or see the tip of a tail once a month or so. So like I said if I had to make a conjecture it would be that snakes have a much harder time finding and populating areas that are heavily developed because so many people are scared of them. (those twenty snakes mentioned earlier were all babies born from a single mother snake I caught years ago.)
> 
> ...


Coyotes aren't native to Illinois in the first place, so I can't imagine why anyone would "re-introduce" them.  Foxes, which ARE native, are eaten by coyotes.
There's no such animal as a "Northern Brown Water Snake".  There are NORTHERN Water Snakes, _Nerodia sipedon_, and there are Brown Water Snakes, _Nerodia taxispilota_ , two different species from two different parts of the country.  You have three species in Illinois, only one of which-the Northern-is found state-wide.  The other two, the Diamondback(_N. rhombifer)_ and the Yellow-Belly(_N. erythrogaster flavigaster)_ have limited ranges and are much less common.

If you set up Water Snakes like you describe, you might as well go ahead and kill them.  They will quickly succumb to scale rot that way.  I breed _Nerodia_, one of few people who do, and these snakes must absolutely be kept DRY in captivity, with just a bowl big enough to drink from for water.  They don't naturally feed on rodents and will only learn to do so through scenting, but readily take amphibians and fish. But again, if you do something to curb the toad population, you're gonna pay for it later in the form of some pest insect overpopulation, like mosquitoes, for instance.  IF you have a nearby body of water, it's always a great idea to have some animal that eats mosquitoes and their larvae, and this is where the toads come into play.  Limit their population, and the "skeeters" are going to explode.  

pitbulllady


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## BenjaminBoa (Mar 5, 2012)

<_< common names are all mixed up for tarantulas, its the same for snakes there may be no such thing as a Northern Brown Water snake, but I listed the scientific name, which is correct. I fail to see why you're making such a big deal over a common name. I have heard it called a Northern brown water snake, or brown water snake hundreds of times, sorry if I offended your "sensitivities" about common names. Offending Adjectives aside I never said anything about keeping their enclosures damp. I said a big tank with some frogs, tadpoles, fish etc in the water bowl. Considering;

A) A water bowl large enough for a snake that size is large enough to drop a few fish or a frog into, whether or not it stays alive isn't my concern. It's prey not a pet. Considering the tanks I'm talking about are 40 gallon breeders, even a bowl big enough for my two boas would not raise the humidity much what so ever and would not make much of an impact on the tank.

B) Naturally I would have done more research on their care when I am ready to get a few, I was just spitballing ideas, however like I said I never mentioned not making the tank dry.

As for the skeeters, we have plenty of other animals and insects who prey on mosquitos, and I doubt a few water snakes will completely curb the toad population, no one said anything about curbing any populations I am talking about getting them under control, not extermination. A lot of you guys are exaggerating the outcomes of what could happen, or more likely just guessing since I doubt anything you've said is based on real experiences.

And lastly, tear tear... coyotes are not native to IL, so are tons of species of plant and animal that are now considered a crucial part of our ecosystem BECAUSE the ecosystem of IL has adapted to these life forms, I'm not going to repeat what has happened in areas where they attempted to remove those species. I don't know if you can't read or just are not very imaginative, but like I said in my examples, many of the animals coyotes prey on or keep under control took over to the point where they have no choice, landscapes are being destroyed. So... uhm if that isn't a reason to re-introduce them.. well lol we have nothing to talk about then, obviously you are not worth my time. I find this kind of funny because in another thread you and some others were talking about how floridas ecosystem is comprised of many invasive species in defense of the big snakes, so it seems to me you're just being biased.


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