people come from all over the world just
to see the snake dens here a lot of
children are a little more willing to
hold the snakes and to interact with
them sometimes the adults are a little
more apprehensive which i think is kind
of odd that it's almost like the fear of
snakes has been built into people as
they grow up I do not like snakes
because they're a little unpredictable
yeah yeah I'm doing a terrible job
pretending that I like snakes here in
the inner lake of Manitoba Canada is by
far the largest aggregations or
concentrations of snakes anywhere in the
world the inner lake of Manitoba is so
plentiful or why snakes are so plentiful
here really goes back to the geology of
the area temperatures can reach 50
degrees below zero and so a snake being
a cold-blooded animal they have to be
able to survive those winter
temperatures so that here in the inner
lake region the limestone bedrock is
very close to the surface and so that
allows the cold and the water to crack
and fissure the limestone and it makes
great big sinkholes and that enables the
snakes to get below the frost line
during the winter there's a very limited
number of these den sites so all the
snakes in an area have to go to that den
site that's that's in their region and
so that's how you end up with literally
tens of thousands of snakes being in a
sinkhole that might be the size of the
average person's living room it is
actually very difficult for the male's
to find a female because if you look
from a snake's eye view you just see
kind of a sea of living spaghetti then
you're looking for a slightly bigger
piece of spaghetti then then all the
rest of them they'll detect the female
sex pheromone the males are very easily
able to then go past all the other
pieces of spaghetti if you will and
homed in on the female oftentimes when
the group of these courting nails all
gathered around
one female trying to be that lucky guy
that's gonna mate with her they'll get
so wrapped up they can tumble down a
hill literally like a ball so people
call them mating balls even though
there's tremendous competition for mates
the males are not fighting with each
other they don't have dominance
hierarchies that don't have territories
set up like other animals would do in a
similar situation I like to call them
the ambassadors of the reptile world
they're a great way for people to
interact with wildlife they really they
feel cool when you touch them and stuff
so they don't they don't bite you they
just kind of move around in your hand
really fast and stuff awesome job guys
now obviously all the snakes here are
harmless the dens here at narcissus have
been set up through Manitoba
conservation and the boardwalks have
been made and they're they're regulated
so it's a nice place for people to come
visit with minimal impact on the Denning
sites themselves way back at the turn of
the century and even through the 20s 30s
and 40s people had a pretty bad attitude
about snakes and trying to clear them
out just times have changed a lot I
think people are much more
environmentally conscious really and
truly that having these healthy numbers
of snakes means you're living in a
healthy environment