About 30 rare Louisiana Pine snake babies recently hatched at Lukfin’s Ellen Trout Zoo

LUFKIN, Texas (KTRE) - In Lufkin, about 30 rare Louisiana Pine Snake babies recently hatched at the Ellen Trout Zoo.

These endangered snakes are a part of the Ellen Trout Zoo’s breeding program. Zoo officials say the eggs incubated for more than two months before hatching.

The zoo currently has only one pine snake on display in the newly remodeled reptile house—but officials say it will be available for view, once they re-open the exhibit to the public.

They say the goal is to increase the numbers and release them—in hopes to turn around the decline of the Louisiana Pine snake.

“We are all going to go full throttle. The snakes are depending on it because literally, it is extinction. We have to get ahead of that curve to save these guys. So, we can’t take our time,” said Robert Jackson, the Collection Manager of Reptiles and Amphibians at Ellen Trout Zoo.

Officials say Lufkin’s zoo is the only place where the Texas and southern Louisiana subspecies of the Louisiana Pine snake are found in captivity. The only other three Louisiana Pine Snake breeding programs can be found in Memphis, New Orleans, and Fort Worth.

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