July is a big month for the eastern milksnake: not only is it when you’ll find International Snake Day (although if it were up to us, we’d make every day International Snake Day since we think they’re ssssssuper cool all year long), it’s also when female snakes everywhere are laying their eggs!
Milksnakes hibernate from October – April every year, but it doesn’t take long after they wake from their winter slumber to start thinking about a future family. Between May – July every year, milksnake mamas scope out piles of leaves, rotting logs, or other safe places to nest. Then they’ll lay between 6-20 eggs and in a couple of months will welcome their new babies!
You might guess that because they lay a lot of eggs at once, eastern milksnakes should be slithering around all over the place. But because they don’t lay their eggs until they’re at least 3 or 4 years old, and after that will only lay eggs once every 2 years, their populations don’t grow as quickly as you might think! This also means that their populations can really struggle to come back after a disturbance. That’s why it’s so important that we do what we can to protect them, and one of the best ways to do just that is to make sure they have lots of safe habitats to call home. That’s why we’re working with the Toronto Region Conservation Authority on the Meadoway Project!
The Meadoway is a 16 kilometre long urban greenspace and meadowland, stretching from the Don River Ravine in downtown Toronto to Rouge National Urban Park. Connecting 4 ravines, 15 parks, and 34 neighbourhoods, it will become one of Canada’s largest linear urban parks – not to mention one of its richest meadow habitats, home to over 1,000 diverse species of plants and animals! Meadow habitats are in decline across Ontario, and this can mean big trouble for the animals (like the milksnake) that rely on them. By protecting this important stretch of habitat, we’ll be helping the eastern milksnake and hundreds of its animal BFFs find a safe home for years to come!
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Snakespecially are min fovorit
Snakes
I love how you give us facts about animals
I love snakes but I wonder how they Shed
I love snakes! We have to help save their habitat! Around our house we see garter snakes and milksnakes.
I have to be truthful with you Earth Rangers, I have a phobia of these cold blooded creatures. I was in the Finch Lake in Michigan, which is in the United States, at my grandparent’s house walking in the shallow waters when I was pretty young. Possibly a water moccasin or just a regular water creature, swam past my leg. I stopped walking and let it swim the rest of the way past me. I was told to walk calmly and slowly to the pier and get out of the water. We were not allowed to go swimming for three years, my cousin, my sister or our friends. Even the kids next to us were not allowed to swim. My dad, grandpa and uncle went to go find the snake to protect us kids. I am sorry for what they had to do. They did not know what kind of snake it was. They did not explain anything to us, just that. I just wanted it to get safely to where it was going, far away from me and stayed there if it could. I know that these creatures are important to our environment. Nothing against them, I promise.
Join my club SAATH witch stands for saving animals and their habits so join if you like any kind of animal if you want to join or have questions just say and I will get back to you as soon as possible and if you do ask questions or ask to join keep checking to see if I responded . This message has been posted by Landon Silver
I have a pet Cornsnake at home
Cool
Snakes are my favourite animals they have an amazing life cycle and its really fascinating to see and wach them in their shedding stages.