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Thursday, Feb. 04, 2010

Merced paying thousands for giant garter snake habitat

Merced wants to 'bank' a habitat -- in Yolo County -- to protect a snake nowhere near here

Come Friday, the city of Merced will cut a check for $388,125 to pay for a nature preserve in Yolo County.

All because of a snake -- a snake that hasn't been seen near the city for nearly 100 years, said Mike Wegley, the city's deputy public works director.

The snake in question, Thamnophis gigas, is more commonly known as the giant garter snake.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said this endangered species is quickly losing out to development and invasive species, among other threats in the San Joaquin Valley.

This is where Merced comes in.

The environmental studies of Merced's wastewater treatment plant expansion showed the project could affect giant garter snake habitat in a waterway skirting the project site south of town.

Hartley Slough, a marshy waterway thick with brush and trees that passes along the northwest side of the site, has been identified as a potential home of the snake.

At first, the Fish and Wildlife Service wanted the city to buy and maintain a refuge area in lieu of the affected habitat nearby, said Wegley. Instead, the two parties came to a compromise in which the city would buy conservation credits.

In other words, Merced would pay Wildlands Inc., a for-profit land banking company, for conservation credits. Those would pay for 8.6 acres of habitat in the Yolo County-based Ridge Cut Giant Garter Snake Conservation Bank.

The bank has yet to be built.

"It's an endangered species, we've got to protect them, it's a little different having not seen one here, but it's the type of habitat that they were accustomed to," said Wegley. "It's a hard pill to swallow, it really is."

Jeff Mathews, director of sales and marketing for Wildlands Inc., said there are no conservation banks in the San Joaquin Valley, so there was nowhere to bank land near Merced. "In a normal conservation transition like this, the credit would be purchased in close proximity to where its impact occurred," said Mathews.

The Yolo County bank is 186 aces, he said. Right now the protected land is just an open field. But, said Mathews, "we actually build habitat."

The company's goal is to recreate habitat. "We cannot just put an easement on the piece of ground and call it snake habitat," he said, noting that the firm must painstakingly recreate a natural landscape. The goal of the service is to contribute to the overall recovery of the snake.

Giant garter snakes haven't been seen at that land bank, but he said there are such snakes in the area. When the habitat is finally rebuilt, the snakes will come.

The giant garter snake, listed as a federally endangered species in 1991, grows to be at least five feet long and can weigh up to one-and-a-half pounds. They live in or near marshes, sloughs, ponds, small lakes and other waterways.

Historically, they ranged from as far north as Sacramento to as far south as Kern County. Much of their habitat has been destroyed because of agricultural and urban growth.

There are populations of giant garter snakes in the central and western parts of Merced County, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service. But the last survey conducted in that area -- in 1992 -- found no reptiles.

But they were found in 1976. And in the 1990s, they were detected in Los Banos Creek and the Volta State Wildlife Area.

Reporter Jonah Owen Lamb can be reached at (209) 385-2484 or jlamb@mercedsun-star.com.