When most people think of rattlesnakes, they don’t think of Canada, but the Kamloops region is desert grassland in many respects. There are cactus, rattlesnakes, and even Northern Alligator Lizards here. In the last few weeks my reptile and amphibians loving nephew has visited twice. Both times we have gone out looking for snakes and both times we have been quite successful in our targets. On the first visit, a Gopher Snake was the target. We drove along a road where this might be possible and sadly found a dead one killed by a vehicle. After switching a few roads we ended up moving a few smaller Western Terrestrial Garter Snakes off the road so they wouldn’t meet the same fate.

A little ways further we came across a beauty of a Gopher Snake (Great Basin Gopher Snake) and also moved it to safety. I have written another piece on this site about snakes and roads and its truly tragic that they are drawn to these areas of fast moving vehicles to warm up before hunting.

A couple weeks later he was back in town with a dream of seeing a Northern Pacific Rattlesnake. We spent quite a while looking before finding this one.