San Francisco garter snake
Thamnophis sirtalis tetrataenia

The San Francisco garter snake has been called North America’s most beautiful serpent. A fantastically colored species that does justice to its moniker, it is identified by its reddish-orange head with red, black, and blue racing stripes on its sides and back.

Click here to learn how to identify a San Francisco garter snake.

Unfortunately this harmless and gorgeous critter isn’t easily seen, in part because it is on the brink of extinction. Restricted primarily to San Mateo County, the species’ preferred habitats—wetlands and marshes with access to upland basking areas—have been hit hard by agricultural, residential, commercial, and even recreational development. There may be only one to two thousand individual San Francisco garter snakes remaining in the wild today.

The San Francisco garter snake was protected by federal law as early as 1967, and was listed an endangered species under the Federal Endangered Species Act when the Act was passed in 1973. It is also protected as a Fully Protected Species under California law, and therefore killing the species is not only illegal, but it is also impossible to get a permit to kill the San Francisco garter snake except for restoration projects and scientific research.

Since the garter snake was protected great effort has gone into conserving the species, including the creation of a recovery plan and controlling developments to ensure that the species’ habitats aren’t adversely modified. However, many obstacles still remain to the snake’s survival. Indeed, it is even starting to lose its favored prey: the California red-legged frog is itself threatened with extinction due to development and other threats.

The operations of Sharp Park Golf Course are a major source of mortality for the San Francisco garter snake. As a cold-blooded reptile, the San Francisco garter snake requires upland basking habitats to warm itself in the sun. Around Laguna Salada, these upland areas are almost exclusively golf links and fairways, requiring constant maintenance and cutting. Unfortunately lawn mowers and basking snakes don’t mix well: garter snakes are run over and killed by the lawn mowers. Golf carts and maintenance vehicles also take their toll on the species, and its population at Sharp Park has declined precipitously since the 1940s.

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, this San Francisco garter snake was killed by a lawnmower at Sharp Park Golf Course.

The Golf Course does not have a permit to harm the snake, nor has it implemented a single mitigation measure to ensure that the most beautiful serpent in North America is kept safe from the ongoing maintenance and operations of the course. As the days and weeks pass and more and more garter snakes are found dead, the potential civil and criminal liabilities facing the golf course managers are increasing.