This year, although we had planned to release the vipers an the end of February, it could only be started two weeks later due to the unusually long winter. Finally, believing in the forecasted warming, we targeted the day of the first release.
On the way to the location of release (photo: Erzsébet Herbót)
.
- The vipers had been released in the wintering burrows (photo: Jaime Bosch)
On the “big morning” we got a surprise: Budapest was covered by a 10 cm deep blanket of snow, but fortunately it melted by noon, so we didn’t have to wait longer to start the event, which can be considered as a major milestone of our project. After checking with a pipe camera, we transferred the selected snakes to the release site together with their artificial wintering burrows. With this method the snakes didn’t notice any change in their living, except the short lightening time of the camera and a bit of movement. In order to prevent sudden escape reaction of the vipers, we blocked the entrance of the holes for an extra two days. Finally 30 Hungarian meadow vipers had been released in 5 wintering burrows to a site nearby the Hungarian meadow viper Conservation Centre. We plan to limit disturbance to these snakes, therefore we check them once a week with short walks in the area and by looking in the burrows with the pipe camera.
