Maps depicting suitable habitat will provide a valuable tool for directing pine snake surveys. An understanding of available habitat is also needed to identify areas that may be depleted or unoccupied because specific critical habitat components such as hibernacula or nesting sites are absent or because of over-collecting. When these areas are identified, biologists can experiment with applying management techniques such as provision of artificial hibernacula, prescribed burning, etc. Information on the location of potential pine snake habitat will also assist permitting agencies such as the Pinelands Commission and the Land Use Regulation Program in the review of development permit applications. We developed maps of potential pine snake habitat by combining the ITU land cover and soils data layers according to predetermined criteria.
Lakewood soils occupy higher upland portions of drainages.
Based on the association of northern pine snakes with these soils, we ranked them as primary. Evesboro sands typically support a pine-oak cover, which provides the most widely used habitat for pine snakes. Notably, Evesboro soils are not common in the areas where published studies describing pine snake habitat associations were carried out. This may explain the lack of reference to Evesboro soils within areas of preferred habitat. We ranked as secondary soils a group of sands and loamy sands having characteristics similar to the Lakewood, Lakehurst and Evesboro series.