Smith College Students Create Snake-Friendly Quarters

In a secret spot at Smith College’s MacLeish Field Station in nearby Whately, Massachusetts, students have constructed a welcoming winter home—for shy reptiles, that is.

The hidden hibernaculum is a place where snakes can comfortably spend cold days while they “brumate”—a state where they are not fully asleep but are metabolically s-l-o-w-e-d down. The underground shelter is part of a habitat restoration and species protection project at MacLeish sponsored by Smiths’ Center for the Environment, Ecological Design and Sustainability (CEEDS) and supported by an $8,500  grant from the Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom and the National Wildlife Federation.

The winter home is designed, in particular, for the eastern rat snake, a non-venomous tree snake that is listed as an endangered species in Massachusetts. Other snake species, including the northern water snake, will also likely share the approximately 42-square-foot space.

On a recent sunny afternoon, Alex Blaszczyk ’27 and Sarah Gygax ’28 were busy putting the finishing touches on the hibernaculum, a deep hole filled with large rocks, dry leaves, and grasses—natural materials that mimic the burrows snakes typically seek out in the winter months. 

Entrance tunnels made of terracotta roofing tiles will enable the reptiles to move easily into the depths of the space. Three tunnels were built so that the one-and-done hibernaculum stays accessible as long as possible.

“It’s cool to see this come to life,” said Blaszczyk, an intern at CEEDS and a lead organizer of the snake-protection project, as she carefully placed a moss-covered rock into the hole.

“It’s been a long time coming together,” agreed Gygax.

Under the supervision of Paul Wetzel, field station manager at MacLeish, students did research for the successful grant application, prepared the site, and designed and built the hibernaculum

The large rocks inside and a covering of soil atop the resting space will provide both protection and warmth for snakes. An old apple tree nearby will serve as a “basking tree” in the spring and summer months.

Don’t snakes already seek out their own hibernacula?

In a blog post she wrote for the National Wildlife Federation, Blaszczyk points out that habitat loss caused by development and climate change means snakes—endangered and otherwise—“may have a more difficult time finding these spots.” 

Wetzel puts it this way: “It’s sort of like building birdhouses,” he said, in between bouts of operating a tractor bucket at the hibernaculum site. “You could argue birds don’t need them,” but they can be helpful in areas where natural nesting areas are becoming scarce.

Speaking of scarce, no one involved in the hibernaculum project has yet to see an eastern rat snake at MacLeish. But the hope is “we’ll have a visible presence” before long, said Blaszczyk, who will be studying in an environmental science program in Christchurch, New Zealand, spring semester.

Keeping the hibernaculum hidden will help prevent poaching for pet store sales, she added. And native tree plantings and other habitat-restoration strategies that students have deployed in the vicinity–including removal of invasive plants—should encourage the snake population to grow.

Dreaming even bigger, Blaszczyk said, “these actions will create a more biodiverse and adaptable tract of forest at MacLeish, which will benefit the entire ecosystem in the long term.”