Snakes Are Declining Around the World, But Why?

“Our data revealed an alarming trend.
The majority of snake populations had declined sharply ....”

- C. J. Reading, Ph.D., U. K. Centre for Ecology and Hydrology

June 23, 2010  Hammond, Louisiana - When the research paper above was first made public in Biology Letters the first week of June 2010, I was startled to learn that the European science team reported that beginning in the year 1998, 64% of the seventeen snake populations around the world that they studied have declined - some as severely as 90% loss - “and none (of decliners) have shown any sign of recovery over nearly a decade since the crash.” Some of those species in decline include the asp, smooth snake from Europe, the Gabon viper, the rhinoceros viper of West Africa and the royal python.