Want to watch Central Coast rattlesnakes in the wild from home? Here’s how
Want to watch Central Coast rattlesnakes in the wild from the comfort of your couch?
A team of Cal Poly researchers have set up livestream video of a rattlesnake rookery — a communal nesting site for the snakes.
“Rattlesnakes are portrayed on television programs as bloodthirsty, aggressive beasts,” Cal Poly biology professor Emily Taylor, who leads the research team, said in a news release. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”
“I hope that by watching rattlesnakes behaving as they actually do, with mothers taking care of their pups and even babysitting for each other, people might think better of rattlesnakes,” the reptile biologist said.
The camera, located in an undisclosed area on private land, is focused on several expectant mother snakes that are expecting to give birth in the next few days, according to Taylor.
The young snakes, known as pups, stay with their mothers until mid- to late September, the release said. The rattlesnakes will then disperse throughout the countryside in search of food before entering hibernation for the winter.
The livestream is part of Project RattleCam, a community science project that seeks to help researchers answer questions about the social dynamics of rattlesnakes in groups and how mothers interact with their babies and other snakes.
Members of the public can help scientists study rattlesnakes by watching the livestream and then reporting any observations to Taylor and her team.
The research is funded by a grand from the Cal Poly Research, Scholarly and Creative Activities Grant Program.
“We hope to eventually install cameras on snake aggregations all over the world to help us better understand the behaviors of these complex, social animals,” Taylor said in the release.
To watch the livestream, which will be streaming from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily, visit bit.ly/snakelivestream.
