The Eastern Massasauga Rattlesnake: - U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

including academics and property personnel to get the information they want. Specific details of
massasauga locations should not be given out to anyone who is unfamiliar. Scientific collecting
is typically a permitted process, so personnel can request to see identification and a copy of the
permit. Personnel should also be wary of persons claiming to work with established scientists.
Collectors often know who is doing scientific research and will use that knowledge to get
locality information. Unless the scientist has introduced the individual to property personnel,
their claims to be assistants or volunteers should be viewed with skepticism. As a final thought,
certain individuals may prove to be much more devastating to a population than others.
Conservation officers may be aware of these individuals and be able to provide the land manager
with specifics about them.
Disease Transmission. Whenever humans move animals from one place to another for
any purpose, either indirectly through increasing connectivity between populations or directly
through translocation, an important concern is the threat of increasing disease transmission.
There are numerous examples in the literature about contagious diseases that have decimated
wildlife populations due to increased connectivity among populations (Hess 1996) and there is a
growing concern that disease is a major factor to consider in efforts to conserve threatened
species (Dobson and May 1986, Holt 1993, Wolff and Seal 1993). Enhancing connectivity
between fragmented populations is attractive to conservation biologists because increasing
movement between populations may reduce the probability of extinction of subpopulations and
of the metapopulation. While it may not be a major concern among species with relatively low
vagility, one negative consequence of increased connectiveness is enhancement of the spread of
infectious diseases.
Another way to increase connectivity is to actively transport individuals from one
population to another. This may include augmenting depleted populations from other, larger
populations and "headstarting" newborn individuals from the source population by a period of
captivity where mortality can be reduced (see Section III Population Monitoring). In either case,
the concern is that there is an increased disease risk as animals are moved from captive to wild
populations and between wild populations (Reinert, 1991). Captive conditions, however brief,
may magnify disease due to artificial diets and stresses associated with captivity. New diseases
may be introduced into the wild population from the donor population and diseases in the
recipient population may also affect the donors. In addition, translocated snakes may acquire
diseases from other animals that were concurrently transported or previously housed in the same
container. Among reptiles, there is evidence that release of captive pet desert tortoises
(Gopherus agassizii) and gopher tortoises (G. polyphemus) into wild populations has greatly
contributed to the recent and ongoing epidemic of upper respiratory tract disease in these species
(Jacobson 1994). Ophidian Paramyxovirus has been identified in several captive populations of
the Aruba Island rattlesnake (Crotalus unicolor) resulting in significant mortality (Odum and
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