In the Okanagan desert, snakes offer lessons on protecting a fragile ecosystem

By Aaron Hemens, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, IndigiNews The snake was close. Lindsay Whitehead could hear it in the receiver strapped to her chest. For nearly an hour in the sweltering desert heat on June 30, Whitehead and cnúk Jenna Bower had crossed a sunbaked field above Osoyoos Lake, stepping through sagebrush and rare antelope-brush while Whitehead held a radio antenna over the land. The receiver’s electronic ping grew louder as they neared the edge of a bluff, then softened whenever they tried another direction. Somewhere beneath them was a Great Basin gophersnake researchers h…