For Hungarian meadow vipers—nicknamed “aristocrats” by the zoologist who first described them—human encroachment into their habitat has been both a blessing and a curse.
Conflict between warring empires from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries altered the landscape in Eastern Europe. Armies trampled over wild and rural places to expand their territories. Forests were razed for resources during war, increasing the area of the dry grassland, or steppe, ecosystem. This expansion of the Hungarian meadow vipers’ steppe habitat was advantageous: for a time, it allowed the population to grow and flourish.
The species historically inhabited parts of Hungary, Austria, northern Bulgaria, and present-day Romania. These small, intricately patterned, venomous snakes, which prefer small prey such as insects and rodents, shared the land peacefully with grazing cattle. But starting in the 1900s, growing human populations gradually planted new forests and tilled the soil to grow crops, decimating the vipers’ habitat in the process.
By the year 2000, the species was limited to only two sites in Hungary, and just 500 vipers were believed to survive in the wild. Political issues and agricultural policies in Hungary stymied efforts to protect crucial remaining habitat. Though protected by law, Hungarian meadow vipers continued to suffer from the effects of human activities, and year by year the species slipped closer to extinction.
The Budapest Zoo approached CPSG in 2001 to lead a workshop where stakeholder groups with differing views of the meadow vipers’ situation could clarify the available information and address the issues surrounding the species’ decline.
At the beginning of the workshop, CPSG invited participants to identify what they thought were the biggest challenges to viper conservation. Many indicated that habitat management conflicts and poor communication among stakeholder communities were holding up progress. Lack of understanding about the threats to the species and scarcity of scientific data were exacerbating the problem.
On the first day, researchers presented the best current knowledge of the vipers’ status. Next, CPSG organized the participants into working groups to further examine the data and clarify what they knew. Old conflicts quickly surfaced: some participants questioned whether the species was actually in decline, and thus whether all the fuss was necessary. CPSG redirected the conversation back toward the data and suggested tools to help participants push through the points of contention. Population models, compiled using the data presented earlier at the workshop, confirmed that the vipers’ situation was indeed urgent.
Though their discussions were difficult, the stakeholders were able to make progress on a shared understanding of the species’ status. A number of participants told CPSG facilitators that the small group activity increased trust among those present at the workshop. “The gathering of well-known international experts convinced Hungarian stakeholders and authorities that the time had come for coordinated action,” wrote Dr. Endre Sós, Veterinarian at the Budapest Zoo, in the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria’s Zooquaria magazine. He told CPSG, “Although the legislation in place to protect the species appeared to be adequate on the surface, the field data presented at the workshop revealed that was not the case. Immediate actions could not be postponed anymore.”
In addition to helping participants work through many of their original sticking points, the workshop catalyzed further collaboration among stakeholder groups that had previously been at odds—which continued long after the workshop. To implement the workshop recommendations, BirdLife Hungary, government agencies, national parks, and zoos partnered to start a complex conservation project.
“The current collaboration between the different agencies, NGOs, and institutions was very unlikely before the CPSG workshop,” said Miklós Persányi, Director of the Budapest Zoo. “CPSG provided the right atmosphere and guidance for moving past our disagreements and building trust among everyone involved.”
The partners developed the Hungarian Meadow Viper Conservation Centre, based in a farmhouse in Kiskunság National Park. They began acquiring farmland to reconstruct suitable viper habitat and preserve the land into the future, and they monitored wild populations of the species. The center began a breeding program for vipers, and the Budapest Zoo provided veterinary support, produced crickets as food for young vipers at the center, and helped inform the public of the viper’s plight.
Today, over 3,200 Hungarian meadow vipers have been born at the breeding center, and more than 500 have been released into reconstructed grasslands nearby. Some reintroduced vipers have produced offspring. In areas where reconstructed habitat was connected to existing habitat, sightings of Hungarian meadow vipers increased during surveys. But humans aren’t the only ones seeing more snakes – predators are taking notice as well. That’s why a new project launched in November 2019 to tackle factors, such as predation, impacting the success of viper conservation efforts.
