Michigan's only venomous snake: What is the Eastern massasauga?

Tell me what you were doing in that video that the Botanical Gardens shared. I forgot to bring my snake tongs, which I usually use. And so often when I'm out, I was out with our media specialist and a couple of my interns with a stick. I was just trying to part the grasses. And sometimes you can just tap around and have just a much better range and then still have that can trigger a buzz. And sometimes it's not going to be what you see. It's what you hear when you're tracking down Massasaugas in particular. It's kind of the buzzing of a cicada. Now, I don't know who decided to make Snake Week in July. I would not have put Snake Week in July. I believe it's like a global thing. So maybe in some part of the world, July is great to find snakes, but not great in Michigan. We didn't see a single snake. We didn't see a single snake the next day when I went out looking for them during Snake Week. If I were to make Michigan Snake Week, I would make it like in May or September. Michigan is kind of a stronghold for the Massasauga. And there are some sites within Michigan that are probably dire in probably a couple of years away from extirpation, which is a local extinction of the animal, particularly but well, it could be a plant or an animal or whatever, but extirpated is that local population is no longer. And there are some sites that are, you know, habitat loss is probably the biggest reason why the snake is now on the endangered species list now for 10 years now. But there are major threat would be invasive species, namely woody shrubs and trees, buckthorn, honeysuckle, autumn olive, a number of other ones. But if the snake does not get enough sunlight, or if the habitat is kind of reduced, degraded, then it won't be able to find prey. They need proximity to water. Now, we at the Botanical Gardens here have Flaming Creek, which runs through the middle of the property. We have a pond and a couple of brooks and several fens. And so it's a great variety of wetland habitats. And we will find them within those habitats. Let's say I'm walking around in a habitat that a Massasauga is going to be in, whether I know it or not, what might be some precautions I could take just to avoid alarming them and appearing threatening to them? Sometimes you'll see them like lying, just they're basking, they need to thermoregulate. And so sometimes you'll just be lying in the middle of the trail. And so they'll be perfectly visible. I would just say walk slowly, walk with closed-toed shoes and long, like, jeans or, you know, perfect, big enough, stout enough material that the fangs won't get through.