On June 3, 2026, representatives from Audubon Zoo released 14 Louisiana pine snakes into Kisatchie National Forest near Alexandria, Louisiana. All 14 hatched at the zoo. Audubon is one of only four facilities anywhere maintaining a breeding colony of the species, and the only one in Louisiana.
The rarest snake in the country
The Louisiana pine snake is among the rarest snakes in North America. It lives in longleaf pine savanna, a habitat greatly reduced from its historic range across the Gulf South, and it depends on Baird’s pocket gopher, whose burrow systems the snakes shelter in and whose tunnels supply much of their food.
That double dependency is what makes the species so difficult. Producing snakes is the easy half; the pine savanna and the gophers have to be there waiting for them.
What a breeding colony actually does
Four facilities in the world hold this animal. That is the entire safety net.
A breeding colony of this kind is not an exhibit program. It is a production line for release animals, run to a genetic plan, aimed at putting hatchlings into restored habitat on a schedule set by the recovery effort rather than by the zoo. The measure of success is not how many snakes are in the building; it is how many left it and where they went.
Kisatchie National Forest is Louisiana’s only national forest, and its longleaf pine restoration work is the reason there is anywhere in the state to put these snakes.
Release programs run on the same model across taxa. Como Park Zoo shipped 3,000 Wyoming toad tadpoles to Laramie this summer, and Santa Barbara Zoo returned red-legged frogs to the Santa Monica Mountains.
Why a zoo visitor should care about a snake
Pine snakes are large, handsome, non-venomous constrictors that spend most of their lives underground, which means almost nobody has seen one and almost nobody will. They are also the exact kind of animal that a zoo is uniquely positioned to save: unglamorous, geographically specific, and of no interest whatsoever to anyone but the people who understand what it is.
Audubon Zoo is in Audubon Park in New Orleans, roughly four hours from the forest those 14 snakes went into. Next time you are in the reptile house, that is what the building on the other side of the glass is for.
Quick answers
- What did Audubon Zoo release?
Fourteen Louisiana pine snakes, all hatched at the zoo, released into Kisatchie National Forest near Alexandria, Louisiana on June 3, 2026.
- Why is the Louisiana pine snake so rare?
It is among the rarest snakes in North America. It lives in longleaf pine savanna, a habitat greatly reduced from its historic range across the Gulf South, and it depends on Baird's pocket gopher, whose burrow systems the snakes shelter in and whose tunnels supply much of their food. Producing snakes is the easy half; the savanna and the gophers have to be there waiting.
- How many facilities breed this species?
Four anywhere in the world. Audubon Zoo is one of them and the only one in Louisiana.
