Walter Meshaka Jr. exudes enthusiasm for snakes, as well as other reptiles and amphibians.
The senior curator of zoology and botany at The State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg hopes a new, 54-page booklet he helped to create will generate some of that same enthusiasm in others, or at least make them think twice before killing every snake they encounter on sight.
His intended, primary take-away from the book is “awareness. The world’s bigger than us and we’re responsible for it. And, you can make good decisions with good information.”
Noting the basic level of questions posed by spectators at programs involving his pet rat snake Jet, Meshaka explained, “It shows you where you’re starting with the questions asked. It’s something as common as a black rat snake and that tells me that basic information is wanting.”
In addition, he sees the reptiles’ situation in today’s world – a few of the species in the book are listed as endangered in Pennsylvania, populations of several more are declining, and all of them face growing threats from habitat destruction, pesticide use and other impacts – as “all the more reason” to get the 10,000 copies of the booklet that have been printed into the hands of wide-ranging people across the state.
“You have to know this stuff to decide what we’re doing,” Meshaka said. “You need to know that when you scrape down a forest you aren’t just eliminating trees.
“I’m not saying all development is bad, but you have to be responsible about it. This helps you by showing what species you have to work with and where they might be.”
He noted that additional booklets will be published on frogs and toads this summer, salamanders and newts next winter, and lizards and turtles next year. A reprinting of “A Pocket Guide to Pennsylvania Snakes” likely will follow next year.
To produce a one-page entry for the snake guide on each of the 22 species of snake native to Pennsylvania, Meshaka worked with Joseph Collins, a herpetologist at the Kansas Biological Survey and director of The Center for North American Herpetology. Collins’ wife Suzanne, a widely published wildlife photographer, produced most of the photos to illustrate all of the species.
The Collins have produced similar snake booklets in other states.
The booklet format “fills the niche between a poster and a big field guide,” explained Meshaka, who has an extensive background of field research in herpetology. “It satisfies a few basic questions. What is this snake that I see? Where might I find it in the state?”
In other words, the booklet provides the images and information to make a fast, but certain identification among the members of a group of animals with which few of us are familiar.
Meshaka envisions naturalists using the booklet in the field, utility workers carrying it to identify snakes they encounter along utility lines, gardeners using it to decide a snake they come across is harmless to humans, scouts and other youth incorporating it into their nature programs, and other such field uses.
“There’s something in that book for anybody in Pennsylvania with an interest in snakes,” even if they don’t yet know they’re about to develop a close-up interest in the reptiles, he said.
The booklet sells for $5 per copy, or $3 in lots of 10 or more. It’s available through the Pennsylvania Bookstore, in Harrisburg or online , or through any of the organizations that helped to sponsor the project: The State Museum of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Wild Resource Conservation Program, Ned Smith Center for Nature & Art, Powdermill Nature Reserve, and The Center for North American Herpetology.