The indigo is yet another herp species that illustrates the severity of the problems faced by numerous reptiles and amphibians. Indigo snakes are protected at the state level in Alabama, and have full protection as a threatened species in Florida and Georgia, and as an endangered species in South Carolina and Mississippi. The original range of the eastern indigo snake once included southern Mississippi and Alabama, Florida, much of Georgia, and perhaps parts of southeastern South Carolina. Currently the distribution is restricted to Florida and the Coastal Plain of southern Georgia. In spite of reintroduction efforts at some locales, indigo snake populations continue to decline.
Indigo snakes inhabit a variety of habitats.
Although habitat destruction has been a major factor in the snake's decline, habitat preservation will be one key to its survival. By protecting and managing this habitat type for birds and tortoises, we are also creating conditions that will enhance indigo survival. It is likely that the management of red-cockaded woodpecker habitat, using periodic growing season burns, will have a positive effect on both gopher tortoise and indigo snake populations. The ecology of indigo snakes makes protection of them more problematic than some species. For example, at many sites in winter indigo snakes are found almost exclusively in gopher tortoise burrows.