Previously, about 20,000 snakes were dying on the highway each year. Local legend has it that cars were skidding off the road because were so oily due to dead snakes. Manitoba has had severe, early winters, during which a lot of snakes didn't make it back to the dens in time, and there were massive die-offs. Is this annual gathering threatened in any way? Most of the time the challenge is locating and getting close to the wildlife-here the challenge was to not step on them or take them home in your camera bag. This was completely different than other wildlife stories I've shot. It's not feces, but it smells just as bad.Īny interesting or unusual things happen to you during your filming? They're totally harmless, but they do have a line of defense if they get startled-emitting a bodily fluid on you. There aren't many places where you can go and interact with wild animals like that.

Interpreters are on hand and encourage people to pick one snake up at a time. Tourists view the dens by walking on a boardwalk. The instant you sit down, you're literally covered with them. If you're not a female snake, you might as well be a rock. In the den, they're not, since they're so focused on mating. They do these cute periscoping, where they stick their necks up and look around. After awhile spending time in the snake dens, you learn to appreciate their finer points and see the world from their point of view. I was indifferent to snakes going into this. What was it like being among all these mating snakes? ( See National Geographic's pictures of snakes.) They come out in the spring, mate in these dens and up to 20 kilometers to their summer grounds, load up with amphibians and worms, and head back to the cave. They spend about eight months of the year in these large underground chambers. The only reason all these snakes can survive these winters is because of the large limestone crevices that reach deep into the ground, below the frostline. It's a fantastic place for snakes to be in the summer because there are huge marshes loaded with frogs, but in the winter it drops down to -40. It's due to a lucky coincidence of two geological features: limestone crevices and marshes. This grouping of red-sided garter snakes has the most northern range of any reptile in the Western Hemisphere. Why is this the largest gathering of snakes? What attracts them? (See ' Wild Romance: Weird Animal Courtship and Mating Rituals.') People come in from California just to do this-it's kind of a niche interest. It's not very well known outside of the snake world, but does get a decent number of tourists, around 3,000 to 4,000 people a day. When I first heard about the largest concentration of snakes in the world in rural Manitoba, 'That's the last place I would think something like that would happen.' The winters are -40. We caught up with Colangelo to learn more about his snake-mating adventure. (Also see ' Year of the Snake: The Serpent Behind the Horoscope.') They have 'puppy-dog eyes-they just don't blink,' he quipped. To Colangelo, getting up close and personal with the oft-feared reptiles can show people that snakes are fascinating, underappreciated, and even, he'll admit, a little cute. 'The small males court the larger female by rubbing her head with their chins and maintaining as much contact between their long bodies as possible.' These slithery swarms appear to be a 'frenzy, but a closer look reveals a much finer dance,' Colangelo said in his field notes. She, in turn, 'is desperately trying to get out of the pit,' said Colangelo, an environmental documentary photographer. The National Geographic grantee recently gained new appreciation for the reptiles while photographing the world's largest gathering of snakes in the Narcisse Snake Dens of Manitoba, Canada (map).Įach spring, masses of red-sided garter snakes congregate inside limestone caves to form mating balls, in which up to a hundred male snakes vie for a single female. Crawling through a writhing pit of 75,000 snakes may not be everyone's idea of a great day at work, but it was for Paul Colangelo.

Pictures of lots of snakes