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Sinks Canyon State Park employee Conner Gregory moves a rattlesnake from the trail leading to the Popo Agie River sink on Sept. 1, 2026. (Skylar Sargent)<\/p>\nSinks Canyon State Park Superintendent Jessica Moore was responding to a call that she\u2019s quite familiar with \u2014 a snake was on the trail \u2014 when WyoFile rang on Tuesday, incidentally to inquire about rattlesnakes.<\/p>\n
A colleague\u2019s call had alerted Moore \u201cthat we need the bucket,\u201d without specifying why. But she knew the drill.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to make sure, in case guests are overhearing, that they\u2019re not going to the location where the snake is,\u201d Moore recounted from her office a couple hours later.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In what\u2019s a routine operation at Sinks Canyon State Park, seasonal staffer Conner Gregory gently seized the venomous viper with a dedicated snake grabber along the trail leading to where the Popo Agie River goes subterranean. The snake in his grip looked to be about 8 years old, based on the beads on its rattle. It was pretty chill.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt didn\u2019t actually start to rattle,\u201d Moore said, \u201cuntil we were putting it into the bucket.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sinks Canyon State Park employee Conner Gregory moves a rattlesnake from the trail leading to the Popo Agie River sink on Sept. 1, 2026. (Skylar Sargent)<\/p>\n
It was a low-drama affair, even with a handful of intrigued park tourists watching. The snake-moving crew carried the rattler a stone\u2019s throw away from the trail, set it free and that was that.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A couple years earlier, the snake would have been given a ride to the higher-elevation west end of Sinks Canyon State Park. But for the snake\u2019s own well-being, they\u2019re now moved much shorter distances.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat procedure has changed based on the research that Emily\u2019s provided for us,\u201d Moore said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Emily is Emily Martin, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Idaho\u2019s College of Natural Resources Idaho Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit. She just completed three years of field research on prairie rattlesnakes in Sinks Canyon, one of the more likely places to see a rattlesnake<\/a>. Yet, little was understood about the population, which numbers in the hundreds.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cNo one had done any research in Sinks Canyon before,\u201d Martin said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Moore encouraged Martin to dig in, and she did. For the next three years, the biologist visited the state park regularly searching for and capturing rattlers. Early on, she realized the snakes of Sinks have their quirks.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIn a lot of places in Wyoming, you get these big dens where you\u2019ve got hundreds of snakes,\u201d Martin said. \u201cIn Sinks Canyon, they don\u2019t really do that. It very much seems that they\u2019re hibernating singly, or in very, very small groups, which is really unusual.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n That wasn\u2019t the only atypical behavior. Rattlesnakes are renowned for providing some level of maternal care.<\/p>\n \u201cA rattlesnake will have her babies, and then often babies will hang out with mom until they have their first shed,\u201d Martin said. \u201cI never observed that in Sinks, which I thought was really odd.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Even in the immediately adjacent Sawmill Creek drainage, she said, communal dens and mothering behavior were much more common. From a research standpoint, the quirks were initially challenging.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI worked on rattlesnakes in California, and was used to being able to walk up to a den and sample 20 or 30 snakes,\u201d Martin said. \u201cWhereas at Sinks, I\u2019m out there 10 hours a day for six months and I catch 100 snakes, which is pretty low return.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n That\u2019s not to say there are few snakes in Sinks. They\u2019re everywhere, but just dispersed around the landscape, she said. Martin encountered rattlesnakes basking in the snow, and coiled up in pine needles. A few snakes even hibernated in the talus on the shady, north-facing side of the canyon, which isn\u2019t typically thought of as good habitat.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI have no idea what they\u2019re doing up there,\u201d Martin said. \u201cBut it seems to be working for them.\u201d<\/p>\n Moore, the park superintendent, confirmed that the snakes of Sinks are just about everywhere. Early this summer, which brought record-breaking heat<\/a>, the park was fielding a lot of calls about snakes along trails that cut through the timbered slopes along the south side of the canyon.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe were speculating: Is it because it was so hot that they were using more of that shady side?\u201d Moore said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Martin\u2019s study also provided some clues about exactly what the Sinks serpents were up to. Although their reptilian body shape doesn\u2019t lend itself well to exterior tracking equipment, researchers are able to embed transmitters into snakes\u2019 body cavities using a minor surgery.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt actually sits underneath the rib cage,\u201d Martin said. \u201cI suture it to a rib, and then the antenna runs subcutaneously, just under the skin along the body wall.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n During field seasons from 2024 to 2026, she implanted 31 Sinks Canyon prairie rattlesnakes with the transmitters. It was through this research that Martin learned that snakes particularly struggled when state park workers moved them long distances<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe found that they had decreased survival,\u201d she said. \u201cThey weren\u2019t doing well.\u201d<\/p>\n Specifically, she found that three of the 11 translocated snakes died over the months and years ahead. Comparatively, only three of the 20 snakes that didn\u2019t get moved died in the months ahead.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Grant McCarger, a University of Idaho wildlife technician, relocates a prairie rattlesnake from near the Sinks Canyon\u2019s sink in summer 2025. (Sinks Canyon State Park)<\/p>\n Over the course of the study, Martin also picked up some other oddities about the snakes of Sinks. About 3% she encountered didn\u2019t have rattles. Although other studies have investigated rattleless rattlesnakes<\/a>, the cause of the trait in Fremont County snakes seems to be different.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe found that it was associated with skeletal and reproductive abnormalities,\u201d Martin said, \u201cwhich is not something that\u2019s been reported before.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n An academic paper about those rattleless rattlers is in the works, and Martin\u2019s aiming to publish it in the Herpetological Review. That\u2019s not the only part of her research that she\u2019s pushed through the peer-review process. This spring, the University of Idaho scientists published a research article about Sinks Canyon snakes\u2019 proclivity to aggregate<\/a> when they\u2019re shedding their skins.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cTo my knowledge, it\u2019s the first observation of shedding aggregations in prairie rattlesnakes, so that was exciting,\u201d Martin said.\u00a0<\/p>\n An average of 2.4 snakes gathered together during periods of skin shedding, but a handful amassed during the largest groupings. Sometimes groups were all females, other times there were bisexual aggregations.\u00a0<\/p>\n Why they gather when they slough their skin remains a bit of a mystery, Martin said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAs with a lot of science,\u201d she said, \u201cI think we\u2019re not totally sure what they\u2019re up to.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n One behavior that the Sinks Canyon research did not document among the rattlers: conflict with people and their pets. Only one of the study subjects got into trouble.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI had one that we translocated after a dry bite to a dog,\u201d she said. \u201cShe was set up under a picnic table, and unfortunately somebody had their little dog on a leash, and the dog came in and got tagged in the face. But luckily, the snake elected not to use any venom.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n That fits with Moore\u2019s experience managing a heavily recreated square-mile state park that\u2019s squarely in dense prairie rattlesnake habitat. She\u2019s only been aware of the one dog bite in four years, and hasn\u2019t heard of a human being struck.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere are hundreds of rattlesnakes here in Sinks Canyon, and we see a couple dozen a year,\u201d Moore said. \u201cThat speaks to the fact that we can all share this space, and for the most part, the snakes don\u2019t really want to interact with people.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Presenting her research at the Saving Yellowstone<\/a> conference hosted by billionaire Bondurant resident Joe Ricketts<\/a> last month, Martin made her case for the value and importance of rattlesnakes. They help protect native vegetation from rodents, she said, and provide a food source for small carnivores and raptors.<\/p>\n \u201cI think more importantly, rattlesnakes are emblematic of the things we really value about nature, about wild spaces like the Greater Yellowstone,\u201d Martin said. \u201cThe strong feelings that rattlesnakes inspire, including fear for some people, is a good reminder of what we value about nature as a society.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sinks Canyon State Park Superintendent Jessica Moore was responding to a call that she\u2019s quite familiar with \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":835344,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-835343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=835343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/835344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=835343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=835343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=835343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/506055606_10236170677990106_7483604405161572856_n-768x1024.jpg\")
University of Idaho PhD candidate Emily Martin helps a Great Basin rattlesnake breathe while surgery is conducted for research. (Courtesy)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Peapod_tail-683x1024.jpg\")
About 3% of the rattlesnakes that University of Idaho researchers encountered during a 3-year study in Sinks Canyon lacked rattles. A reproductive abnormality likely explains the snakes lacking their telltale feature. (Emily Martin)<\/p>\n