UNION CO., Ill (WSIL) -- It's a great time of year to head outdoors, not only to see the beautiful fall colors but to also see interesting wildlife.
Snake Road in Union County is a popular and important area in ¾ÅÓÎÌåÓý Illinois.
"This is the only place in the entire country that I'm aware of, that they actually close the road for snake migration. The Forest Service started doing this in 1972 to reduce the amount of vehicular mortality of animals migrating from the bluffs into the swamp during the spring and then back up into the bluffs in the fall," explains Scott Ballard, Herpetologist with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.
Snake Road is a 2.5 mile walk one way and is closed to vehicles through October 30th, attracting visitors from all over the world.
"We do have some endangered species down here like Timber Rattlesnakes that without the road closure, they may be victims of vehicular mortality. Vehicular Mortatlity does count for 25 percent of all reptile deaths so it's important that they do this," states Ballard.
Protecting the snakes is their number one priority which is why Ballard says hooks, tongs and anything that could be used to collect a snake is prohibited. "A lot of people think they're going to come down here and it's going to be a scene out of something like Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom and it's not that way. It's a gradual migration. You walk the road, the 2.5 mile stretch of road one time, you may see 20 or 30 different snakes and that's a lot. If you keep doing that all the sudden you're into the hundreds."
Ballard says in order to see the snakes you have to keep your eyes peeled and be in the right place at the right time. "In the winter time they go down below the frost line where it stays about 50 and they just live off whatever fat they stored up during the previous summer feeding. We're starting to get the swamp encroached onto the road a little more, so it's a shorter point to hibernation. It's just right out of the water across the road. This is where we're probably going to start seeing more. Your chances are going to be higher right where the waters right encroached."
Not including Ballard's Timber Rattle Snake used for programs, we saw 4 snakes and an adundance of other animals.
"You see that thing around his neck? That's a baby ring neck snake and they're full grown maybe a foot long. A lot of times they'll curl that tail and expose the bright color underneath and so animals see that bright color and just like the velvet ant, oh bright color it must be venomous so I'm going to leave it alone. This is probably a two year old. You notice he's always trying to get away from me so when people say cotton mouths attack you, nope. Normally they sit and open the mouth and coil it and expose the white lining where they get the name cotton mouth. That's the most common snake down here. When I came and did my master's thesis I marked over 500 of these," says Ballard.
Ballard asks that when looking for wildlife, you leave everything as you found it. "When they just do lilke this and they walk away from it, eventually this is going to trans evaporate, going to go down into the burrows and then they're going to dry up. We want them to kind of put these back so they don't mess up that moist micro climate."
Snake Road is located in the LaRue Pine Hills, Otter Pond Natural Area.
You can get there by taking LaRue Road, East, from Illinois Route 3 just north of Wolf Lake.
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