Eastern Massasauga - Endangered in Indiana

Data used to make this map came from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. Visit this IDNR webpage to see listings of all endangered species by county.

The Eastern Massasauga rattlesnake struggles to survive in certain areas where its vital habitat is being destroyed or harmed. The snakes typically live in wetlands but are also found in grassland and even dry pastures. They are mainly found in Midwestern states - particularly Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin - but the range of their presence extends eastward to New York, Pennsylvania, and southern Ontario (Canada) and westward to Iowa, Minnesota, and Missouri. In Indiana, most Eastern Massasauga populations live in Northern Indiana, which has more wetlands than the rest of the state. It may seem strange, then, that most of Northern Indiana's counties are in the region where the Eastern Massasauga is endangered. That is because ecologists, environmentalists, scientists, and geographers know there are E. M. populations in the dark red counties but have been seeing less and less of them - hence why they are considered endangered. In light-shaded counties, the snake species is extremely rare to find or extinct, although there are likely some counties with enough snakes to stay off the endangered list. It is difficult to approximate the populations in each county, partly because the snakes are not very noticeable when they are out and about.

These are the 26 dark red-colored counties where the Eastern Massasauga is considered endangered:  Allen, Carroll, Cass, Delaware, Elkhart, Fountain, Fulton, Hamilton, Hendricks, Jasper, Kosciusko, LaGrange, Lake, LaPorte, Marshall, Montgomery, Noble, Porter, Pulaski, Saint Joseph, Starke, Steuben, Sullivan, Wabash, Wells, and Whitley.