Snakes on a lane: Annual reptile-related road shutdown underway in Illinois forest
As road closures go, one that takes place twice per year in Southern Illinois might be the oddest.
Shawnee National Forest officials have shut down Forest Service Road No. 345 through Oct. 30. Need a hint as to why? Consider the path's nickname, "Snake Road."
Yep, just in time for Halloween season, we're talking about something that would be near and dear to Samuel L. Jackson's heart: Snakes on a Lane.
The 2.5-mile road in Union County runs north to south along the base of towering limestone bluffs, a man-made obstacle between the swampy floodplain of the Big Muddy River and the ancient bedrock. The Big Muddy is itself part of the Mississippi River flood plain, flowing in a channel anciently cut by the bigger river before humans tamed it for navigation.
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The road is there because the USDA Forest Service, which manages the area, is tasked with balancing conservation with access to public lands.
Every fall, snakes and amphibians — some of which are considered endangered or threatened species in Illinois and the United States — slither and crawl their way from the swamp to the bluff.
There in the limestone cracks and crevices of the bluffs and the loose, sloping buildup of rock debris at their base, the critters burrow in for the winter.
"They have to get down two or three feet to get below frost line so they don't freeze and die," Scott Ballard, an Illinois Department of Natural Resources biologist, told the Courier & Press in 2017.
The gradual, two-month migration attracts people from across the country eager to witness the rich diversity of reptile and amphibian species along this single stretch of road. About 66 percent of the amphibians and 59 percent of the reptiles known to occur in Illinois are found there.
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All spring and summer the snakes have been feeding in the biologically rich wetlands, storing the fat that will sustain them from roughly November to March, when they will emerge in a reverse migration. Because many of the snakes, especially venomous species such as cottonmouths, copperheads and timber rattlers, release scent trails, Ballard said they are able to follow them back to their winter dens.
In the early 1970s the Forest Service began closing Snake Road for three weeks in spring and fall to protect the migrating creatures, Sue Hirsch, a public affairs specialist at Shawnee National Forest, told the Courier & Press in 2017.
Vehicles account for 25 percent of the man-made causes of death for snakes in the area, Ballard says.
The road is now blocked off to traffic each March 15-May 15 and September-October.
This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: 'Snake Road' shut down for snake crossing in Shawnee National Forest
