This week in rattlesnakes...

On Sunday night, Rebecca (a Rockhurst research student), Joey (a KU research student) and I were prompted by necessity to perform an emergency field operation on Colt-45, mother of the baby rattlers mentioned last week. To briefly summarize our original project before going on, last year our research team salvaged a population of these snakes, whose habitat was subject to imminent destruction, by moving them to a secure site. In order to evaluate their success, we surgically implanted 8 of these snakes with internal radio-transmitters. Since this process began in April of 2007, we have tracked these snakes throughout their active seasons. When we went out to track Sunday morning, we found that Colt was no longer emitting a radio signal, though we saw her in the birthing shelter (rookery). We knew that something was wrong, though we didn't know the extent. Rather than taking her from her babies or collecting all of them as we took her in to perform exploratory surgery, we set up a make-shift surgical facility in the middle of the prairie near the rookery and commenced the procedure. She was recovering from an infection from her initial implantation this summer, and the transmitter antenna had been exposed through this wound, causing it to become brittle and eventually break off of the transmitter. The transmitter and antenna had to be removed, and we opted not to replace them in order to speed her recovery. Following surgery, we placed her back in with her babies and waited for her to come out from under the anasthesia. She and the babies have since abandoned the rookery and we are hoping that she is successful in her search for food before they enter the den for the winter in the next few weeks.