Snakes find new winter home thanks to wildlife experts

LINDENHURST – It's a far cry from a hotel with four-star amenities, but for some western fox snakes, these digs are just right.

For years, the snakes had been utilizing the basement of a nearby house as a hibernation home during the cold winter months – a home wildlife experts dubbed the "fox snake house."

But when the snake house was slated for demolition, the hundreds of snakes who used it for shelter during the winter faced a bleak outlook, said Michael Corn, a retired dean of biology at the College of Lake County who has been studying the snakes for more than 12 years.

On Jan. 8, the outlook for those snakes got a bit brighter as about a dozen fox snakes were relocated to a man-made hibernaculum on the grounds of the Fourth Lake Forest Preserve in Lindenhurst.

Wildlife experts who worked on the relocation project are hopeful the snakes will find the 10-foot-by-10-foot underground structure made from large concrete cylinders just as appealing as their former home, said Nan Buckardt, director of environmental education and public affairs at the Lake County Forest Preserve.

"It's a condo that has a grocery store attached," Buckardt said.

Western fox snakes are common across Lake County, but their numbers may be declining in northeast Illinois because of continued development that threatens their natural habitats, Corn said.

"They do well for themselves in old houses," Corn said. "They came in that house and, literally, for decades hibernated there."

The lack of alternative winter hideouts is why creation of the hibernaculum was so important for this particular group of fox snakes, he said.

"Without it they would have come back this fall to nothing and surrounded by highway," Corn said.

Once inside the hibernaculum, the snakes will wedge themselves between pieces of plywood, "sort of like covering up with a blanket," he said.

The snakes will remain in the hibernaculum until April, Corn said, when they will exit back into their natural summer habitat at the forest preserve through a small entryway connected to the concrete structure.

Researchers are hopeful the snakes will return to the hibernaculum next winter. Older snakes are believed to use memory to return to their hibernation locations, while younger snakes use scent to find their way back, Corn said.

Because the hibernaculum is close in proximity to the old house, it presents a unique opportunity for researchers to examine how the snakes respond to the relocation.

"We wanted to make sure there was a place for them to exist because they are an important part of the ecosystem," Buckardt said.