To All Interested Parties
The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service was recently petitioned to list the eastern diamondback rattlesnake as a threatened or endangered species. The eastern diamondback was historically found in the lower Coastal Plain from North Carolina to Louisiana. As the Service reviews the status of the eastern diamondback, the National Council for Air & Stream Improvement, Inc. (NCASI), which is a non-profit research center that provides technical information on environmental issues for the forest products industry, is trying to gather data to improve understanding of its distribution and habitat associations.
If you encounter an eastern diamondback rattlesnake, we would greatly appreciate you completing the attached survey form and returning a copy (printed or electronic) to NCASI. The electronic form is “fillable,” meaning you can enter your survey response on your computer using Adobe Acrobat Reader. Once you have entered your data and saved the file, you can e-mail the file to snakesurvey@ncasi.org. Alternatively, you can complete a printed copy of the survey by hand and mail it to the address identified on the survey. You can also complete the survey online by visiting http://www.ncasi.org/snakesurvey.aspx. If this snake was observed on land owned by a forest products company or of interest to a forest products company, you also may give the completed form to a company employee or leave it at the company’s offices. There is information near the bottom of the survey form and on the page following the survey that will help you identify the eastern diamondback rattlesnake and distinguish it from the timber (or canebrake) rattlesnake.
NCASI will be collecting these forms through December 31, 2013. Following that date, data collection will cease and NCASI will compile results from surveys, remove any information that would identify individual respondents and/or landowners, and forward a summary of results to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.
We thank you in advance for your assistance with this important survey.
Survey Form
T. Bently Wigley, Ph.D. Manager, Sustainable Forestry and Eastern Wildlife Program (864) 656-0840 bwigley@ncasi.org
NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR AIR AND STREAM IMPROVEMENT, INC.
Mailing Address: PO Box 340317, Clemson, SC 29634-0317
Physical Address: Room 261 Lehotsky Hall, Clemson, SC 29634
Phone (864) 656-0840 Fax (864) 656-3304