To: SC DNR Public Outreach Team

From: Conor W. Joye

Subject: Snake Persecution and Population Decline

Firstly, I would like to thank you all for your hard work. Your efforts have helped our
department to better educate the public on wildlife issues and reduce human-wildlife conflicts.
However, it has come to the attention of the SC DNR that snake populations throughout the state
are declining. We believe that this is due to several reasons including persecution of snakes by
the citizens of South Carolina. In many cases, this persecution is fueled by misinformation that
causes hatred and fear of snakes. This is a huge problem for all of us at the SC DNR and I
believe that it is our collective responsibility to help prevent the decimation of native snake
populations. Public outreach and education have a major role to play in correcting this problem.
Social media and other methods of public outreach can be great tools to better inform the public.
As an organization, we need to take advantage of these tools and use them to combat snake
persecution. As an organization, we want to focus on three main categories of information. These
categories are safety precautions to take around snakes, differentiating venomous and non-
venomous snakes, and the positive impacts that snakes have on humans. If the citizens of South
Carolina are better educated on these topics, snake persecution and human-snake conflicts could
be dramatically reduced.
Public outreach and education are two of the most important elements of wildlife conservation.
This project provides an opportunity for you to make a significant contribution to the
conservation of native snake populations in South Carolina. I thank you all for your hard work
and dedication to South Carolina citizens and wildlife.
I would like to meet with you all a week from today to discuss possible directions for your public
outreach plans. I would like you all to work together to draft a social media post for each of the
three categories that I listed below. I will send more information about where and when our
meeting will be in the coming days. If any of you have any questions regarding this project
please email me (conorj@scdnr.gov).

Thank you,
Conor Joye
Wildlife Biologist
South Carolina Department of Natural Resources
conorj@scdnr.gov