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Riesling and Rattlesnakes

The unlikely intersection of desert herpetology and dessert oenology.(That’s studying snakes and winemaking to the rest of you.)
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Photo by Leslie Anthony

By Leslie Anthony

I was staring at the rings of Saturn and seeing stars in broad daylight.

Jack Newton had just topped up my afternoon glass of merlot, but it was he and not the grape treating me to close-up views of the sun and other marvels courtesy of a hydrogen-filter mounted aside his computer-driven, 16-inch telescope, the centerpiece of an impressive hand-built observatory.

As proprietor of the Observatory B&B, located high on a mountain overlooking Osoyoos, B.C., Jack takes pleasure in dragging guests along on his continual scouring of the visible universe. Jack’s is one of several observatories dotting mountaintops in an area of notoriously clear skies and comparatively low urban glow.

But astronomy wasn’t the only science intersecting with the fruits of local commerce. Shifting my gaze downward and across the valley revealed a different kind of universe—the terrestrial mosaic of vineyard, orchard, forest, and sage desert of the southern Okanagan Valley. Officially known as the Bunchgrass Biogeoclimatic Zone, this desert is North America’s most fragile and fastest-disappearing ecosystem. Agricultural and developmental pressure are consuming habitat at an alarming rate, bringing people into increasing contact with creatures that depend on it. The semi-arid land responsible for the explosive success of British Columbia’s and Washington State’s wine industries is also home to many plants and animals at risk—including cute-as-a-puppy Burrowing Owls and the not-so-frickin’-cuddly but no less important Northern Pacific Rattlesnake.

How burgeoning agribusiness handles conservation issues will determine whether the desert ecosystem survives, and the plight of the much-maligned rattlesnake — rodent-hunter extraordinaire, icon of the Wild West, bogeyman of every Boy Scout campfire — is a signpost of that struggle.

“I’ve seen plenty,” said Jack, who wintered at another home observatory in Arizona and was no stranger to the buzz-kill of a rattler’s buzz. “Almost stepped on a few, too… but of course, I’m used to looking up, not down.”

Around the Okanagan, winemakers and other land-gobblers were similarly trying to come to grips with serpents underfoot, raising an all-too-common question: could humans and snakes coexist? I figured it all made a good story. And so, in the waning warmth of early October, with snakes curling into winter dens and gourmands crawling the Okanagan during its annual wine festival, I set out to explore this dalliance of decadent and deadly.

I’d spent enough time around both rattlers and herpetologists (those who study reptiles and amphibians) to understand the nanosecond it took the latter to make a painful mistake, so there would be one rule: Snake-chasing could precede wine-tasting, but never vice versa.

The trail began at the waterfront Okanagan Nature Centre in Kelowna’s City Park. Inside, kids clambered over each other to peer into aquaria housing fauna like the endangered Great Basin Spadefoot Toad, Western Skink, Alligator Lizard, handsomely blotched Gopher Snake, nervous Western Racer, plasticine-like Rubber Boa, and of course, rattlesnakes. The tiered cages and prepubescent crowd were reminiscent of a camp nature hut, the excited chatter not unlike what I’d recently heard from professional herpetologists trolling the displays at the New Orleans Zoo during one of their annual conventions — except the kids weren’t drunk and wouldn’t need to be removed by security.

Scott Alexander, an award-winning educator, conservationist, and resident naturalist dressed in Ranger Rick motif, proved a fountain of arcane information on everything from water-bombers to wasps and, of course, rattlers. Scott explained that the centre opened in 2004 on funds raised by the Okanagan Nature Centre Society after a conservative-minded provincial government pulled all support for environment and parks initiatives and interpretive presentations — ludicrous given that Kelowna was Canada’s fastest-expanding city with annual population growth approaching 10 per cent.

“Habitat is evaporating overnight around here, but agriculture is only part of the problem,” explained Scott. “Housing and roads do far more damage to rattlesnake populations.”

The issue, at the northern edge of the rattlesnakes’ range, was that their dens, located in the rocky scree of hillsides, were separated from lower foraging habitat by all manner of development. Acreage in vineyards tripled from year 1990 to 2000 and came with a huge spike in population and visitation. In the summer of 2007 newspapers brimmed with reports of increasing encounters between humans and rattlers driven from their hillside homes by construction and cultivation. By June the problem resulted in four bites—100 per cent above the annual average. Granted, the victims were all morons who ventured to pick up snakes, but with the breakneck development it was only going to get worse: Colonization by more morons was inevitable.

Modern vintners take a more enlightened approach to rattlers traversing vineyards en route to and from dens — in fall and spring, respectively — than the orchardists of yore who simply did them in on sight. Still, local enmity toward rattlers runs deep in some quarters. It doesn’t help that there’s a church on every corner.

As we drove north to check out a den near Oyama, Scott related the tale of Vernon’s rabid Reverend Mackie. In the 1930s, promulgating a literalist biblical view of subduing the earth, the good reverend launched a personal campaign to eradicate the serpent scourge. He spent twenty years clubbing snakes, dynamiting dens, and perpetuating the poor animals’ satanic image to a god-fearing populace.

It was unfortunate that many gullible farmers got on Mackie’s bandwagon because rodents damage crops, and snakes are far more efficient rodent predators than other animals — not only consuming adults but also locating nests and wolfing down young.

Rattlesnakes are also among the most reasonable forms of dangerous wildlife. Their first line of defense is to remain motionless. Surprise them or cut off their retreat and they offer an audible warning. Get too close and they head for cover.

Venom is intended for prey, so they’re reluctant to bite. Between 25 to 50 per cent of all bites are dry — i.e. no venom is injected. Of the four bites mentioned above, three were dry.

Scott pulled off the highway, a shimmering lake to our right and the dry pine-juniper woodland we were headed into on our left. With wan afternoon light filtering through rapidly yellowing leaves, we climbed a steep, rutted hill. At its crest sat a low pile of rocks that marked the den structure. Flanked by several smaller, more-colourful coils, a dusty, metre-long rattler lay wedged in its entrance. Its bulging body was as thick as my arm, with strongly keeled scales that resembled glaucous beads. The tail, banded in black-and-white, sported a long, drooping rattle. Looking safely through my trusty telephoto, I counted sixteen segments.

Despite our stealthy approach, the smaller rattlers had melted quickly into the closest cracks while the larger snake slowly uncoiled into the dark vacuity. I took a couple shots as it slipped away. But as I maneuvered for a final photo, a Western Racer sprang from nowhere across the broken rock, and without thinking I shot a practiced arm out to grab it, two bolts of lightning colliding in the sun. With its clean lines and lithe look, it was clearly built for speed. Scott pointed out that the harmless constrictor’s presence demonstrated how several species often hibernated together and how destruction of one den could spell doom for all. This den was located in an ecological preserve, but most in the Okanagan weren’t that lucky.

“I’ve seen dens used by four or five different species bulldozed for a mall parking lot,” he said. “That’s enough to drive you to drink.”

Later, as the sun dipped over Lake Okanagan, we sipped a dazzling Riesling on the terrace of Gray Monk Estate Winery and chatted about Ogopogo, the lake’s version of Nessie, commonly spotted plying the steely waters from just such lofty, lubricated vantages. An entrepreneur had once built an Ogopogo amusement park near the beast’s supposed home on tiny Rattlesnake Island. Before building commenced, the Reverend Mackie’s acolytes had hacked up resident rattlers with shovels and tossed their bodies into the lake. Nobody caught the irony of vanquishing one of humanity’s “monsters” to make way for another. The amusement park lasted but a few years; the island reclaimed the ruins and snakes occasionally made their way back across the short channel. Reality 1: Fantasy 0.

“Rattlesnakes,” gurgled Scott in a clumsy toast, “you gotta love ’em.”

Nk’mip Cellars is North America’s first aboriginal-owned-and-operated winery. Situated on a long bench overlooking Osoyoos Lake, the winery boasts row upon row of emerald vines, contrasting and circumscribed by the sienna of an adjacent tract of natural desert. The winery boasts a full range of award-winning vintages, cases of which I quickly stashed in my car before we got down to dangerous business.

Beside the winery sits an interpretive and heritage centre promoting the Osoyoos band’s program to restore habitat and reintroduce species at risk. Roads posted with “Brake for Snakes” warnings (in native tongue) and interpretive signs pointing out plant life and describing the history of the Osoyoos people offer a nice counterpoint to the typically dry (pun intended) winery tours that troop through the region. But the highlight for most here is the rattlesnake-tracking program. Visitors to the centre could watch snakes being tagged with the same kind of under-the-skin microchips used for dog and cat identification and hear a spiel about the multiyear project being conducted in conjunction with the Canadian Wildlife Service. The program enabled Nk’mip and wildlife managers to monitor populations and work out protection strategies.

This seemed both more enlightened and hands-on than pure PR programs — like the token dollars one winery threw at off-site studies of the doomed Burrowing Owl whilst simultaneously tearing up its habitat for new vines.

At Nk’mip I joined Jeff Brown, a Masters student at the University of Guelph, on his final day of tracking before he headed back to Ontario for the winter. Osoyoos band member Roger Hall was assisting him with the telemetry study.

Telemetry involves surgically implanting micro-transmitters in animals and then tracking them, an increasingly popular method as hardware shrinks in both size and price. The study’s focus was on identifying movement patterns and critical habitat usage in order to better manage rattlesnakes.

“It isn’t easy to convince people not to kill rattlers on their property or even on someone else’s property like a golf course, but people around here are pretty reasonable compared to other areas where rattlers occur,” said the sanguine Jeff, who also worked on Massassauga Rattlesnake conservation in Ontario’s cottage country, where convincing Bay Street bond-traders not to hack up the rattlers their million-dollar retreats were displacing was like banging your head against the limestone walls of the Toronto Stock Exchange.

As a result of education and outreach programs, most local vintners and campground and golf-course keepers in the Okanagan are adept at safely removing or diverting snakes as recommended by fish and wildlife officers. Tinhorn Creek Winery, for instance, has constructed a pilot-project fencing system with gates that remained open while rattlers were migrating but were shut during the prime growing season so that vines could be attended worry-free.

Many of British Columbia’s farm workers were originally from the Punjab, where venomous snakes were far more of a danger. Agriculture and poverty have brought together high densities of snakes and people in India, as that country continues to lead the world in snakebite deaths with an astounding 20,000 of the global average of 30,000.

The rattlers were on their way back to dens now, and after tracking twenty all summer Jeff was following up on their autumn denouement. He zigzagged up a steep incline at a slow run, dodging sagebrush and skirting rocks, raising puffs of dust from the scarified soil as he swept a telemetry antenna ahead of him.

“Following this guy is like following a squirrel,” grunted Roger from behind.

With sweat stinging my eyes, I was thinking more like a mountain goat when Jeff abruptly pulled up at a large sage wrapped haphazardly around some shattered rock.

“It’s not here,” he announced, flat static emanating from his transceiver. “The snake I’m tracking stopped here yesterday, but it’s gone now.”

“It’s funny,” smiled Roger, poking the ground and arching an eyebrow, “but several snakes have stopped in this exact spot on their way up to the den.”

I’d peered at the stark, rocky substrate for any clue as to why this particular clump of mangled brush was a popular roadside attraction for migrating rattlers, but couldn’t see anything obvious. That alone offered compelling reason to gather the basic biological and ecological data that telemetry focused on.

As we approached the den, high on the steepest part of the hillside, Jeff’s transceiver clicked sporadically, and we peered under every rock jutting from the slope.

“I don’t think it’s the one I’m tracking,” said Jeff finally, pointing to a tight space underneath a large flake, “but there’s a snake here.”

I could just make out the coil of a small rattler, barely visible through the netherworld of shadow and grasses. Drawing its head briefly from the depths and holding its tongue out in a steady flicker, it gathered whatever information was pouring off me and, finding nothing good, wedged itself farther into the shadows.

It was an apt metaphor for the Okanagan’s beleaguered snakes, and I didn’t blame it one bit.

Ken Lauzon was uncorking another Riesling at Hillside Estate Winery in Penticton when naturalist Mike Sarell told him there was a Rubber Boa den above his property.

Like many folks, Ken had a longstanding fear of snakes, and Mike suggested that the impressively passive, almost toy-like species might just be Ken’s ticket out of his personal fear factor.

Mike and I had spent the afternoon in search of a rattlesnake den, hiking and climbing through the Dr. Seuss-like Skaha Cliffs above the Naramata bench outside of Penticton, home to half a dozen famed wineries. After several false turns, he’d finally located the den at the 11th hour, high on a narrow shelf of rock that fell away over a cliff. We’d found a few snakes and teased one into the light for a photo, so we were, in a way, celebrating. Which all seemed very strange to someone like Ken who kept his fear at bay while we described our adventure with zeal. Somehow—and it could have been the Riesling—he seemed to come around at the description of the Rubber Boas, and agreed to have Mike come back and show him the den.

“Wow, this has been quite a day of discovery for all of us,” I’d remarked of Ken’s catharsis, also thinking back to my own epiphany at the rattler den teetering on the side of a fall-you-die cliff.

“Sure was,” said Mike. “That’s the best Riesling I’ve ever had.”

I had never actually seen a Rubber Boa on my own in the wild yet but I wouldn’t have to wait long. On a long, hot, 15-km hike through fire-scarified Okanagan Mountain Park’s Wild Horse Canyon — inspiration for the eponymous triple appellation (drawing elements from vineyards variously located in B.C., Washington and California) from Mission Hill Winery —with Wild Horse’s head vintner, Kathy Malone, we were, as usual, on the lookout for rattlers. Mission Hill has a telemetry program as well.

There seemed to be no snakes about on this cloudy day of occasional sprinkles and wind gusts when I suddenly became aware that a non-descript, grayish stick lying across the trail was in fact a 70-cm Rubber Boa. Picking it up, I quickly learned why these muscular animals never, ever bite: They don’t have to. Most animals drop these snakes like a hot potato when they release a fetid combination of feces, uric acid and anal musk that smells like week-old, maggot-ridden roadkill. Not only did I need to get the smell off my hands, pronto, but also to chase the stench from my nostrils.

Fortunately, a quick boat ride away in Naramata was Mission Hills’s small new estate vineyard operation known as The Ranch. I began clearing the air with a crisp Sauvignon Blanc before a quick dip in the stormy lake to get the sweat off, drying off with a warm, upbeat Shiraz. Unfortunately the Shiraz ran out far too quickly to keep us all from shivering in the cold winds that were downdrafting under a swirling thunderhead.

I’d been happy there was wine at the end of line to sort out my senses, and I was happy for the serendipitous thrill of finding a Rubber Boa. But I was curiously sad not to have found a rattlesnake and simultaneously aware that these creatures were increasingly rare because of the wine I was enjoying and the development that follows the industry. Was I a hypocrite? No. But I felt the need to get engaged as I was all to aware of the possibility that the next time I visited the Okanagan many of the animals I’d seen would be gone. It reminded me of the conversation I’d had with Mike Sarell at Hillside Estate.

Few know that the Northern Hemisphere is courting a biodiversity crisis as acute as that of tropics — perhaps more so because of the slower regenerative capacity of northern ecosystems. Though the Okanagan community and government has been alerted, little concerted effort or regulatory clout was being brought to ameliorate the situation. The wineries seem to be the only stakeholders involved in any conservation efforts.

“Lots of people are aware, and a few say they care, but where does caring start? With an opinion?” said Mike, sounding suddenly tired.

We both agreed that opinion fell short: True caring starts with action. Doesn’t your own work give you satisfaction, I asked?

“It actually depresses the hell out of me,” Mike said. “I’m the person doing environmental impact assessments for the next big development disasters.”

He had a point. It was like taking a census in a city before someone dropped an atomic bomb on it. And rattlesnakes bore the brunt of most land-use bombs. As building reached higher onto the benches above the lakes, the more snake immigration-emigration was interrupted.

Public education appears to be having some effect because persecution is declining, but much of that decline has occurred because snakes have been made scarce by rabid development.

Mike summarized by putting our day into perspective: “I know people who’ve lived here their whole lives and have never seen a rattlesnake. We saw more in one day than the average person sees in a lifetime. And they’re arguing over whether there should be more parks here.”

People, pressure, politics—it’s the perfect storm for a snake. And that’s not something to drink to.

Leslie Anthony’s upcoming book, Snakebit, is available from Douglas & McIntyre: douglas-mcintyre.com/book/9781553652366



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