A federal grant is funding work in the state to improve the way “nuisance animals” – like snakes and turtles - are transported. The U.S. Department of Defense money is funding research on ways to move these animals more safely.
Nuisance animals are animals people find in their yard and don’t want, or are scared of. They can be native animals or exotic animals people tried to keep as pets, some of which are endangered.
Indiana University – Purdue University Fort Wayne professor Bruce Kingsbury won the $294,000 Department of Defense grant to figure out the best way to relocate animals like the rare Massasauga rattlesnake, which the federal government is considering for the threatened species list.
There are two ways to relocate animals. One is a hard release: the animal is simply picked up in one location and dropped off in another. The other is a soft release, which gives the animal a couple of weeks to calm down before being let go.
Kingsbury says, with both methods, animals often try to return home and can end up dying in the process. So, he’s studying successful relocations by implanting a tiny tracker in the animal.
The Massasauga rattlesnake habitat stretches from Illinois to Ohio and into Michigan, and they’re typically the only venomous snake where they live. "They're of interest," Kingsbury says, "because they are unique and they're in trouble and so I think we are obligated to protect them."
Most of the grant money will go towards funding graduate and undergraduate research.