Efficacy of Marking Snakes with Disposable Medical Cautery Units

Christopher T. Winne¹, John D. Willson¹, Kimberly M. Andrews¹, and Robert N. Reed²

¹Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, Drawer E, Aiken, SC 29803 USA
²Department of Biology, Southern Utah University, Cedar City, UT 84720 USA

Abstract: In many situations, marking snakes for recapture purposes is fraught with difficulty. Toe clipping has obvious drawbacks for snakes, and externally attached tags are easily lost via shedding or abrasion against surface objects. Passive integrated transponders (PIT tags) have near 100% reliability and are typically permanent if correctly implanted (Gibbons and Andrews 2004). However, PIT tags are expensive (a minimum of US $3.50 per tag if purchased in large numbers) and in many field studies the recapture rates of snakes are too low to justify their use. Even if funding is unlimited, the limited girth of some neonates and small species precludes the use of PIT tags (Gibbons and Andrews 2004).
Herein, we report on the use of disposable medical cautery units as an efficient means of marking snakes. These units are small, inexpensive, field portable, and capable of quickly and precisely marking even very small snakes. Marks on most species are easily seen for at least two years.