A new platform has arrived to observe timber rattlesnakes in nature from the comfort of home thanks to a partnership between Cal Poly and Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, as well as generous Cal Poly donors.

Project RattleCam recently launched its third livestream installation at an undisclosed, remote location in Pennsylvania on May 18. The new channel, now live through early fall, operates 24 hours a day, with night-vision cameras capable of capturing the activities of snakes and other creatures that enter into the frame of the camera lens after dark, such as rodents and weasels. 

Donors initially helped fund this new camera as well as the live-streaming fees, while a Cal Poly crowdfunding campaign this spring successfully raised over $16,000 in additional funds to help cover the costs of the custom hardware that makes the camera run, travel to Pennsylvania to install the camera, and summer pay for Cal Poly students to engage in research and outreach via the rattlecam live feed.

The community science project can be accessed free on YouTube as part of Project RattleCam. The launch adds a new location to complement ongoing, highly popular livestreams from Colorado, made public three years ago, and from California, the first to be released six years ago. 

The timber rattlesnake, native to the Eastern U.S., is listed as endangered and threatened in 12 of 30 states it occupies. This North American pit viper is locally extinct in three states: Maine, Delaware, and Rhode Island. The species typically inhabits forests in rugged terrain. Timber rattlesnakes are venomous but known to be highly docile creatures and prefer to avoid confrontation, typically striking only in self-defense. The species was the first rattlesnake encountered by European settlers upon their arrival in the U.S. 

Steadily growing its audience, Project RattleCam now has more than 24,000 subscribers and over 5 million views across its channels. The idea behind the initiative is to encourage education about rattlesnake behaviors, discourage harm to the species and foster dialogue about the reptiles. Rattlesnakes are an important part of the ecosystem, helping to reduce disease and control rodent populations. And their venom has helped produce medications, including anti-clotting drugs that prevent heart attacks. 

Project RattleCam live chats, monitored by the faculty researchers, students and volunteer community scientists, allow the public to share ideas, address questions and even identify snakes and assign them monikers such as “Scar,” the first to be named in Pennsylvania. 

“The public can help us collect data,” said Emily Taylor, a Cal Poly biological sciences professor and co-director of Project RattleCam. “In fact, we have science journal article publications coming out soon that are co-authored by some viewers who helped us as community scientists. It’s really important to me that people know that this isn’t just a camera. This is a community science project where people can act as researchers from their own homes.” 

And as part of an ongoing education campaign, children are learning about snakes through the project’s RattlEd program, which provides curriculum-based materials for third- through fifth-grade teachers to use in their classrooms. The instructional resources, which incorporate the Project RattleCam livestreams, are available to anyone, and the curriculum aligns with Next Generation Science Standards that focus on hands-on learning, critical thinking and understanding how scientific concepts connect to the real world. 

Researchers have expressed concern about misconceptions some people hold about rattlesnakes and warn against harming any snake, which also can increase the likelihood of injury or death for a person. Taylor recommends that anyone who encounters a rattlesnake in residential areas contact a local snake-relocation expert or visit the site at freesnakerelocation.com. 

“By allowing people to watch their natural behavior from the comfort of their own homes, we can dispel some of these myths,” Taylor said. “Our previous research from our Colorado cam showed that watching rattlesnakes engaging in normal behaviors can change people’s minds about them and cause people to become more comfortable around them, and that’s our goal.” 

To learn more about Project RattleCam, visit: https://rattlecam.org/.