There aren't many places where you can find all 52 species of snakes known to inhabit the Southeast, but one of them is in a new book co-authored by Aiken resident Whit Gibbons.
Long revered as one of the nation's most eminent herpetologists, Gibbons teamed up with former Savannah River Ecology Lab colleague Mike Dorcas - now a Davidson College professor - to write Snakes of the Southeast, available this spring from University of Georgia Press.
I had a chance to chat with the affable Gibbons this week - as I've done countless times before - and came away with some some new tidbits of knowledge about some of nature's most misunderstood creatures.
I've always wondered, for example, which of our local snakes is the most dangerous.
"It has to be the eastern diamondback rattlesnake," he said.
"Drop for drop, the venom is 10 times as potent as what you get from a copperhead. And they inject more than twice as much. So if you're bitten by one you may as well have been bitten by 20 copperheads."
What about the prettiest snake?
"Usually I'd think of the scarlet kingsnake," Gibbons said. "But to me, the rainbow snake is even prettier - and the rainbow is the rarer of the two."
Speaking of rare, which species is the rarest? "That would be the short-tailed snake, found in Florida," he said. The snake is a sandhill dweller seldom seen, even by those who study it.
The biggest? I thought it would have to be the timber rattler.
"Nope," Gibbons replied. "The largest is the indigo snake - they reach lengths of eight feet or more. We've studied them down at Fort Stewart, and they actually eat timber rattlers," he said. "That's not all they eat, but they will eat venomous snakes."
The most threatened snake is the Southern hognose.
"They haven't been found in Alabama and Mississippi in over 20 years," he said. "They're now missing from two-thirds of the counties in Georgia where they used to be found."
The cause of their decline is a mystery, but the spread of fire ants and habitat changes are prime suspects.
Gibbons, who has authored more than a dozen books and guides on reptiles and amphibians in the past, intends the new book to be both a field guide and an in-depth reference.
"It will have the basics, and it also goes into a depth in which, if a person is interested, we present everything that it known."
The book is priced at $22.95. For more information, go to www.ugapress.org.
FISHING LAKE PROGRESS: There is good news out of Atlanta for anglers eager to see a long delayed public fishing area created within the 7,800-acre Yuchi Wildlife Management Area in Burke County.
On Friday, Georgia's Wildlife Resources Division was notified that its request to redirect $25.3 million previously earmarked for a drinking water reservoir in Haralson County, Ga., had been approved.
Since land acquisition has taken longer than expected for the reservoir, the funds are being reallocated toward other projects that are ready to go. The $2 million Yuchi Public Fishing Area is one of them.
Bubba Mauldin, regional state fisheries supervisor, said the approval of funding will allow construction to begin as early as this summer.
"The money's still working its way through different channels, so it will take a little while," he said. After hiring a project engineer and seeking bids for the 110-acre lake and related amenities, it could still take as much as six months to get equipment onsite to begin.
"Historically, at fishing areas we've built in the past, we've been able to have dams in place, holding water, nine to 12 months after construction starts," he said.
Stocking of bream, bass and catfish would follow, and the area would be open to fishing about 18 months later.
More than 10 years have passed since surveyors first marked boundaries for the planned lake - and forests already are regenerating where timber was cut long ago. Now it appears the area could be completed, stocked and open to public fishing as early as fall of 2007.
TOURNAMENT TIME: The Savannah River Division of the $8.4 million Wal-Mart Bass Fishing League will visit Thurmond Lake on Saturday for the first of five regular-season events. As many as 200 boaters and 200 co-anglers are expected to compete in the tournament, which will award as much as $39,000 in cash, including as much as $5,500 to the Boater Division winner.
Wildwood Park in Columbia County will hold the takeoff at 7 a.m. and weigh-in at 3 p.m. The winning co-angler will earn as much as $2,750.
The angler who catches the biggest bass of the day in the Boater Division will earn as much as $1,000, and the co-angler big-bass winner will earn as much as $500. For more information or to enter a tournament, call (270) 252-1000 or visit FLWOutdoors.com.
Reach Rob Pavey at 868-1222, ext. 119 or rob.pavey@augustachronicle.com.
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