The Antiguan Racer Conservation Project, co-ordinated by the Environmental Awareness Group since the first rare snake was discovered in 1995, is world renowned for its enormous success in bringing the population of Alsophis antiguae back from the brink of extinction.

Recently the project, now called the Offshore Island Conservation Programme, had the opportunity to partner with a similar project which will be getting underway in St Lucia.

The St Lucia Racer (Liophis ornatus) or Kouwés is one of four snakes considered endemic to St. Lucia (the other three are the Fer-de-lance, boa constrictor and worm snake). The St Lucia racer snake has been red-listed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as endangered since 1996 with later calls being made for it to be changed to critically endangered.

Like the Antiguan Racer, the St Lucia Racer population has suffered due to the introduction of the small Asian mongoose, Herpestes javanicus.

Once common on the mainland, this snake is now known only from Maria Major, a 12 hectare island off St Lucia.

Maria Major is also home to other very rare and endemic St Lucian wildlife, including the Maria Islands pygmy gecko and St Lucia whiptail lizard, and seasonally supports large colonies of nesting seabirds.

The parallels between the two snakes cannot be ignored. Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust and the Forestry Department of Ministry of Agriculture in St Lucia are planning for another parallel, the creation of a project similar in scope and goal to the Antiguan Racer conservation effort. Some objectives of this new project include a determination of the conservation status of the St Lucia racer and its primary ecological needs and threats, and the development of a recovery strategy.

The St Lucia Forestry Department sent a team of three to Antigua for a session of skills-transfer in snake census techniques as used by the Antiguan project of which Durrell is a partner. Stephen Lesmond and Len Isadore of the St Lucia Forestry Department and Rob Williams, a herpetologist from Canada, made up the St. Lucian team.

The guys arrived on a Sunday afternoon and it was straight from the airport to the waiting boat for a brief trip to Great Bird Island. There, the St Lucians and volunteers from the EAG, including field worker Andrea Otto and EAG council member Ashton Williams, spent two days camping and exchanging knowledge. During the camping trip, the St Lucian group learnt, among other things, how to safely catch snakes, collect and record morpho-metric measurements and other relevant data and administer passive electronic transponder (PIT) which are electronic tags that allow the snakes to be identified if caught again.

The exercise started well with the capture of a tiny baby snake and a larger older female on the Sunday night shortly after setting up camp. It was too dark to actually start measuring but everyone gathered around to admire the tiny animal and its larger counterpart. The next day began at sunrise, as the searchers wanted as much time as possible to track down snakes before the day’s temperature became prohibitive.

It is believed that the snakes find cool hiding places when it becomes too hot in the middle of the day. After a short briefing, the group headed off to carefully comb the sandbar, forest and ridge. As they walked, the group members exchanged information on their respective snakes and compared the habitats of Great Bird Island and Maria Major.

Eventually, a snake was spotted and the visitors were ready for their first attempt to catch one. After a few tips, and stealthy approach, the snake was almost in hand and … got away.

After much laughter, Stephen said it was difficult to get over a deep-rooted respect for the poisonous fer-de-lance, which resembled the Antiguan Racer enough to give one pause before grabbing it. By the end of the trip however, redemption was his as, between them, the group netted 11 snakes, including another very tiny and beautiful female racer. The visitors practised measuring and handling the snakes (yes, they are very squirmy) and even got to administer PIT tags.

The camaraderie amongst the participants was perhaps the highlight of the trip, as they traded stories and experiences in fieldwork and other areas. The trip back on the boat included a brief tour of the North Sound Area and the St Lucians expressed the wish to remain longer because, as Stephen said, he “felt comfortable here.”

The importance of the whole exercise lay not so much in one project passing knowledge to another but in one Caribbean island pulling along another in the wake of its success.

The contributions of international partners are of paramount importance but it is significant that we got so much from ourselves.