Eighteen of the cutest creepy crawlers in Chicagoland were
released into the wild on August 29 as part of a joint conservation effort by
Lincoln Park Zoo and the Lake County Forest Preserve District that seeks to
restore the Smooth Green Snake to its native prairie home.

Categorized as an Illinois Species in Greatest Need of
Conservation, these tiny, jewel-colored snakes have drastically dwindled in
population over the past few decades.

“Snakes need champions too,” said Lincoln Park Zoo
Reintroduction Biologist Allison Sacerdote, Ph.D. “People like the warm and
fuzzy animals, but it is important that conservation stretches across the
entire ecosystem.”

After years of development across Illinois, the Prairie
State has less than one percent of its original prairie intact.

“Our wildlife monitoring program revealed, that even in
areas with the suitable habitat, Smooth Green Snakes were absent or extremely
rare despite our habitat restoration efforts,” said Gary Glowacki, Wildlife
Biologist of the Lake County Forest Preserve District. “The decline we have
seen is largely due to habitat loss as prairies were converted into
agriculture, urbanization, and the widespread use of pesticides.”

Essentially, the grasslands and the critters that call them
home need all the help they can get.  In the case of the Smooth Green Snake, the help begins with a
“head start” at the zoo. Animal care
staffers provide optimum conditions for hatching and development so the snakes
have a fighting chance when they are released.

Photo Credit: James Seidler

“The first step for us is to ensure females have a cozy
place to nest and lay their eggs, which are about the size of a pinky
fingernail,” said Dan Boehm, Zoological Manager of the Pritzker Family
Children’s Zoo. “Once the eggs hatch, we feed the young snakes a steady diet of
crickets and worms and monitor their progress to assess which individuals would
fare best in the wild.”

Of the most recent group of juvenile snakes hatched at the
zoo in 2010 and 2011, more than half were released into the preserve located a
few dozen miles north of Chicago. The remaining snakes will stay at Lincoln
Park Zoo.

The snakes destined for the prairie are part of what
scientists call a “soft release,” meaning they will spend some time getting
accustomed to the wild while still being contained in a controlled, managed
environment designed to limit predators. The individuals are then more likely
to stay local to the forest preserve if they are accustomed to the area.

This group of snakes is the second batch released as part of
the recovery program. Conservationists were pleased to see individuals from the
first year thriving in their new wild home and say the success of the initial
release provided them insight into the best way to set the snakes up for
success.