Go Search RoyalSociety.org
Fellow login
Grants, Schemes & Awards
Topics & policy
Search the Fellows Directory
Search for past Fellows
About elections
Biographical Memoirs
Summer Science
You and the planet
Training, mentoring and partnership
Flexi-Grant®
Global Talent visa
Brexit & UK science
Publishing metrics
Fellows' access
Search the catalogues
Funding & finances
2050challenge
COP26 and climate change
You currently have JavaScript disabled in your web browser, please enable JavaScript to view our website as intended.
Here are the instructions of how to enable JavaScript in your browser.
About the Royal Society
Snakes in decline
Snake populations are dwindling at unprecedented rates, adding to an alarming list of declining vertebrate populations across the world. Startling results revealing the extent of snake population decline are published this week in Royal Society journal Biology Letters. The study is the first ever documented evidence of such a decline based on long-term studies of snake populations.
While the causes for the diminishing numbers of snakes are unclear, the scientists responsible for the ambitious study suggest that habitat loss, pollution and declining prey numbers may all have contributed to plummeting populations. The fall in numbers is particularly worrying as many of the species studied are top predators, meaning that their decline could cause serious disruption to many ecosystems. The study showed that in many cases, populations in diverse locations – from Nigeria to the UK – have collapsed at similar rates and in similar patterns, which suggests that there may be a single root cause of the decline.
However, as yet the causes of the decline are far from clear. While a minority of the populations studied were found to be maintaining numbers, all of these came from protected wildlife areas. Worryingly, not all of the groups studied in protected areas were stable; in fact, eight such populations were discovered to be declining rapidly.
Overall, almost two thirds of the species studied experienced significant population reduction over the course of the study and none have showed any signs of recovery so far. Dr Chris Reading of NERC's Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, one of the authors of the international study, said that "snake researchers should work more closely with one another to better identify the factors responsible for the widespread population declines of snakes in order to understand, stop and ultimately reverse them".
Thank you for your feedback. Please help us improve this page by taking our short survey.
Summer Science Exhibition
All grants
All open grants
Premier medals and awards
All policy projects
All policy publications
Search the journals
Fellows Directory
Fellows' Room
e-Lect
Discover our venue
The Royal Society is a Fellowship of many of the world's most eminent scientists and is the oldest scientific academy in continuous existence. Registered charity number 207043
Subscribe to our newsletters to be updated with the latest news on innovation, events, articles and reports.
Copyright © 2020 The Royal Society. All rights reserved