Snake whisperer
Westerville high-school teacher is the state's go-to herpetologist
By Kevin Mayhood
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
FRIENDSHIP, Ohio -- Ben Moore slowly swept the air with the antenna he held as he eased down a steep hillside thick with logs and underbrush.
He kept one eye on the ankle-deep leaves that covered the ground at Shawnee State Forest and the other on a receiver that hung from his neck and beeped softly.
Moore, an 18-year-old senior at Westerville North High School, was tracking snakes with science teachers Doug Wynn and John Birkhimer and fellow students.
This was no ordinary field trip. Wynn is a snake researcher, an expert the state has turned to for more than 20 years for information about Ohio species.
(One indication about the serious nature of the work: Birkhimer carried a GPS unit that had the closest hospitals mapped out, just in case.)
As the group neared a target, Wynn took Moore's equipment and followed the increasingly loud beeps along two fallen trees. The sensor pointed him to the center of one of the trunks.
Wynn and a student lifted from one end of the trunk, and Birkhimer prodded the ground with putter-length snake tongs. A timber rattlesnake exploded from the hiding place and regrouped in a coil against the hillside, its tail a vibrating blur
For the rest of the article, photos, and links.....go to:
http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/content/science/stories/2008/06/10/sci_snakes.ART_ART_06-10-08_B4_G0ADIMA.html?sid=101
