COSAM News Articles 2015 August Department of Natural Resources produces video showcasing COSAM’s effort to reintroduce the eastern indigo snake to its natural habitat in south Alabama

Department of Natural Resources produces video showcasing COSAM’s effort to reintroduce the eastern indigo snake to its natural habitat in south Alabama

Published: 08/24/2015

By: Lindsay Miles

Video by: Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources

Auburn University is coordinating an effort to reestablish the eastern indigo snake in its native habitat in south Alabama. Jim Godwin of the Alabama Natural Heritage Program and Auburn University is the primary investigator for the eastern indigo snake reestablishment project, which was made possible by a wildlife grant from the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. The eastern indigo snake is non-venomous, and it has a lustrous, glossy, iridescent blue-black coloring of the head and body. It is the longest snake in North America and may reach a size of 8.5 ft. and a weight of 11 lbs. for males, and 6.5 ft. and 6.5 lbs. for females. Prior to the reintroduction effort that began in 2011, there had been no confirmed sightings of the eastern indigo snake in the wild in Alabama since the mid-1950s.