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