The Last Kouwès?

by Rob Williams

After a couple of arduous weeks blazing trails along the steep, dense, cactus covered, slopes of the 12 ha offshore island, Maria Major, off the South East tip of St Lucia, the search begins for the endemic and implausibly elusive, Kouwès, or St Lucia Racer snake (Liophis ornatus).

The islet, managed as a Nature Reserve, is now the sole refuge for this snake once considered to be the second most common of the four extant snake species in St Lucia. Free from the rats, mongoose and other introduced predators that have extirpated the racer from the mainland, a little known population has (based on very few historic sightings) managed to persist in what could well be sub optimal habitat for this species.

Although red listed as Endangered in 1996, the threats posed to the remaining population within this tiny area of distribution, such as inbreeding depression, rising sea levels, alien invasive predators, disease, hurricanes, and drought, confer a status far more critical, with extinction most definitely on the cards.

In partnership between Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust (Durrell), Fauna & Flora International (FFI), and the St Lucia Forestry Dept (SLFD), the task at hand…to find and evaluate the status of the remaining snake population on this tiny island and develop a conservation strategy for what could very well be the rarest snake in the world. With an average one to three sightings every year!! No one is saying this is going to be easy…

Getting up to speed – Racer snake 101

Fortunately for us, the long running, hugely successful, Antiguan Racer Conservation project will act as a model for our efforts in St Lucia. So, myself, Stephen Lesmond, and Lenn Isidore of St Lucia Forestry Dept visited the project to learn the necessary skills. Andrea Otto of the Environmental Awareness Group, who is involved with the annual census of Alsophis antiguae, kindly spared some time to join us for a couple days training on the best way to see and catch the Antiguan beauties. Within minutes of setting up camp on Great Bird Island, Lenn had found the first snake - a delicate, opal coloured juvenile at a mere 15cm long.

On the second day the team caught nine snakes of varying sizes, which was a great opportunity to get a feel for how best to detect and approach the snakes, and how to maximise the chance of capture. I just hope the Lucian racers are as accommodating. History suggests not. All the caught snakes were processed, with scale counts, standard length measurements, mass, and morphometric data collected, and then released to the site of capture. With so many snakes caught we all got a chance to hone our skills for when we DO catch some Lucian racers.

Many thanks to Andrea, Ashton, Leron, Tekana, and Kewana for making our visit to Great Bird Island so rewarding.

Hope floats right?

Now highly charged from the Antiguan workshop, and with Toby Ross onboard we set off for our series of soggy daily commutes to Maria Major in search of the Kouwès. To try and lure snakes out we installed small ‘snake hotels’ made from a shallow dish of fresh water covered by an upturned washing bowl, as well as calabash filled with water. There is a single well known racer that would rest in a water filled crevice of a tree; once a regular sighting, it has not been seen for some time now.

We end the week rather despondent to say the least, having not seen one. It is evident to all of us that we have a very different playing field to that in Antigua. Even though we have done additional work improving the trails, the vegetation, leaf litter, myriad of holes and root systems are going to make finding these small/medium sized, inconspicuous snakes a real challenge. The cactus seemed even more vindictive than usual today.

However on the next day, after realising that I had left two bungy cords on one of the trails, I turned back and retraced by steps. About two meters back on the trail and a sinuous movement on a rock, amongst a legion of cactus, almost made my heart stop…. I knew straight away that the creature I had just spooked, by the very trail I had walked just a few moments earlier, was a small snake. I’d seen just enough of the body unwinding as it vanished, before my eyes to say with 100% certainty that I’d finally seen my first St Lucian racer. They’re still here!!

Then the next day, one of Durrell’s St Lucia volunteers, Alex, saw another larger snake, with a more distinct pattern. This is all encouraging but now we need to start catching them. Thankfully it was just the next day that Stephen Lesmond of SLFD and I were walking the same trail where I saw the small juvenile, and low and behold some 6 metres ahead of us, we saw a movement in the leaf litter. This was all Stephen needed and he was off, after a heart stopping moment when we thought it would get away, Stephen managed to get the first snake in the bag. It was a beautiful, healthy looking snake, dark grey with light dorsal markings. At 568mm total length, weighing 22g. Now the project is up and running, we will continue the surveys on Maria to see if we can develop a good population estimate for this species, to start the development of an action plan for the St Lucia racer snake.