EWT bids to protect world's rarest snake in new Algoa Bay game reserve

Photograph by Michael Adams

Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) field officer Michael Adams, whose team is spearheading the initiative to establish a new reserve to protect the Albany adder, said on Tuesday, 22 August, the project was progressing well.

"We have found three more Albany adders, so now five in all since February," he said.

"One was dead on the road having been squashed by a car, which highlights a threat related to how small and slow-moving the snake is.

"The other was a pregnant female which was especially good news in assessing the sustainability of the population."

While the Caribbean St Lucia racer was previously considered to be the world's rarest snake, with just 18 left, the stubby little Albany adder, even with the new discoveries, is rarer still.

Until the new exploration work began this year, just 12 had been recorded since the snake was first described in 1935 and there were concerns it was extinct.

The Johannesburg-based EWT team is working with Port Elizabeth-based herpetologists Dr Werner Conradie and Dr Bill Branch and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's viper specialist group.

The aim is to establish the density of the Albany adders on the 1000ha site where they are working and to use the data to back talks with the landowner and the Eastern Cape Parks and Tourism Agency on the establishment of the proposed reserve.

The exact location of the site is being kept secret to protect the species, which is targeted by illegal wildlife traders, but it lies between Port Elizabeth and Grahamstown.

The US-based Rainforest Trust has sponsored the field work so far and has committed to funding the purchase of the land.

If the reserve was approved, it would be the first in Africa dedicated to protecting a critically endangered snake, Adams said.

Source: Herald