By KEVIN DUFFY
Capital News Service
LANSING – Conservation biologists have built the first artificial home for snakes in Northern Michigan. And they removed an entire dam to do it. Experts say the snakes need the help. Native snakes, including the Eastern Mississauga rattlesnake and Northern water snake, require shelter from cold winters. But development threatens their habitat in what is “the greatest impact to amphibian and reptile populations and reproduction,” said David Mifsud, a wetlands ecologist at Herpetological Resource and Management (HRM) who helped with the project.