The San Francisco Garter Snake

These baby San Francisco garters will be one foot long in
a year, when they will be released in SM County. (Chron)

With an estimated population of over one million, garter snakes are a common sight throughout the continental United States. However, one of the thirteen (13) subspecies--the San Francisco garter--is classified as endangered.

The San Francisco garter snake, with its brilliant hues of deep red and turquoise, is widely considered one of the most beautiful snakes in North America. It’s also one of the rarest, with maybe 2,000 living in the wild today, all in San Mateo County.

In a bid to ensure a future for the endangered snake, Bay Area scientists are teaming up on a first-ever effort to rear a captive colony of the colorful crawlers, with plans to start releasing the newborns and rebuilding their populations at local ponds and hillsides.

“If we don’t have more snakes out there, they could disappear in our lifetime,” said Rochelle Stiles, director of field conservation for the San Francisco Zoo and Gardens, where the captive group is being raised. “The snakes serve a very important role in the ecosystem.”

...The snakes have historically lived in wetlands and grasslands only in San Mateo County and northern Santa Cruz County. (They’ve never resided in their namesake city.) Much of their limited habitat has been developed for housing and farming while invasive predators, such as bullfrogs, have proliferated, all squeezing out the native reptile.

Also, the striking appearance of the snakes once made them a premium target of the illegal pet trade. The snakes are characterized by a wide, bluish dorsal stripe that stands in contrast to jet-black and reddish-orange stripes and a blue-greenish underbelly.

Their vivid coloring, unusual for North American snakes, is likely a defense mechanism, signaling to predators — falsely — that they’re venomous or poisonous. The San Francisco garter snake, like the many other types of garter snakes, is not a danger to people or pets.

The snake was listed as a federally endangered species in 1967, setting the stage for protections that have fallen short of securing its recovery.

Although the "San Francisco garter" only lives in San Mateo County, leave it to the City to hog the glory, as it often does, for goings-on in other parts of the Bay Area.