We often get the question “where do rattlesnakes live?”, and for us it’s become second nature to know when we’re in a neighborhood we know is near rattlesnake habitat. However, not everyone is aware of this or perhaps was never quite sure.
We spent several hours manually mapping out areas we’ve confirmed rattlesnakes live near in an effort to help people understand their habitat & how it works. Their habitat generally needs to be open space that has not been sectioned off or enclosed by human development, and their habitat generally needs to have some large rock outcrops for shelter and potential winter dens.
We’ve chosen to move in and develop on or near their habitat. They’ve been here longer than us, and we hope this map helps people understand their geographic needs in relation to ours.
This map tries to take into account several factors, and in some cases it may be a bit off. Rattlesnakes can have a range of 1 – 3 miles in some cases, which would mean this map is quite conservative. That said, the density of homes in neighborhoods where this could potentially happen are usually dense enough to mean the snake would be spotted rather quickly to put a cap on that range.
Additionally, the map is a bit tricky wherever agricultural land is near relatively untouched land as well as relatively new developments in the Folsom and El Dorado Hills area where snake habitat is partially sectioned off. Overall though, the data and information used to draw the boundaries relies on locations we’ve removed rattlesnakes within the last 5 years, meaning in most cases we can confirm we’ve been in the area for removal calls.
