So Far So Good

The project team has identified the main threats to the racer's future - predators, human superstition and fear, tourism and development, inbreeding, starvation, loss of habitat - and has already begun to tackle them successfully.

Opinion poll - what the local people think about the snake.

List of achievements

Saved the Antiguan racer from certain extinction in the late 1990s.
Cleared invasive black rats and mongooses from Great Bird Island and nine other offshore islands.
Focused worldwide attention on a snake that was virtually unknown outside Antigua until 1995.
Bred Antiguan racers in captivity for the first time.
Changed public attitudes to the snake and turned into a local and national celebrity.
Spent five years studying, identifying and tagging individual racers, making them one of the most-studied wild snake populations in the world.
Persuaded the Government of Antigua and Barbuda to make Antiguan racer conservation a priority in its National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan.

Antiguan racer on ground

Children quickly overcome
their fear of snakes

Opinion poll - what the local children think about the snake.

Chart Success
Here are some interesting facts and figures: Vital Statistics

Supplementary benefits
Saving the Antiguan racer was the number one priority, but the project has also helped other wildlife on Antigua's offshore islands. Take a look at The Bigger Picture.

Happy ending?
This is a real conservation project, not a fairy story. It's far too early to tell you that the Antiguan racers and other plants and animals all lived happily ever after. So what happens next? Find out in Never Ending Story.