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“It's usually doom or gloom,” said Ryan, who works as a gartersnake project coordinator for the Arizona Game and Fish Department. It’s good to focus on positives — like the recent release of a threatened snake species into the wild.

In May, the Arizona Game and Fish Department partnered with the Phoenix Zoo, the University of Arizona and the Amphibian and Reptile Conservancy to put a group of captive-born native narrow-headed gartersnakes into the wilds of the Tonto National Forest.

The slithering reptiles are one of the department's "species of greatest conservation need." Habitat loss and predation by invasive species have depleted their populations across Arizona and New Mexico. In 2014, they were listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

Now, 21 have found a new home in the rocky streams of Canyon Creek.

Since 2009, the zoo has raised narrow-headed gartersnakes in captivity to bolster the wild population. Over almost two decades, the zoo has released 118 snakes.

“When we started this, we didn’t know what was going to happen,” Ryan said. “It was like some snakes and a prayer.”

Drought, wildfire, predators threaten snakes

From the time the captive narrow-headed gartersnakes are born, the Phoenix Zoo houses them in streamlike pools that mimic their natural habitat. Unlike other snake species, they are not hatched from eggs but born as slimy, miniature versions of their adult selves.

Over almost 20 years, the zoo has raised 16 litters. The snakes are released at various ages, sometimes from just two weeks old, to live out the remainder of their lives in riparian oases along the Mollogon Rim.

“ Whenever we look for spots to release them, we want it to be an area that has flowing water year-round,” said Whitney Heuring, Conservation and Science Manager at the Phoenix Zoo. The snakes are almost exclusively fish-eating, so they need access to flowing creeks and streams.

Drought and wildfire can degrade that natural habitat, as can their invasive foes, like crayfish.

“ We're getting habitat loss from climate change, as well as habitat loss by non-native species altering the habitat. All of those things kind of compound and make it harder for the snakes to survive out there,” Heuring said.

As streams dry up or temperatures warm, fish populations could disappear, leaving less food for the snakes. So far, Ryan said, they haven’t seen much of that.

“But it's just going to become more of a factor,” he said.

Species 'more resilient than they're given credit for'

The Southwest is locked in a 30-year drought that’s drying out forests and water resources throughout the state. AZGFD also works to restore streams and riparian areas after wildfires burn through. Recovering fish populations help bring creatures like the narrow-headed snakes back, too.

“The species is more resilient than they're given credit for,” Ryan said.

The newly released snakes will be monitored by researchers at the University of Arizona via chips called “pit tags” implanted along their spines that track their movements and lifecycles. In captivity, narrow-headed gartersnakes can live up to 13 years, but scientists aren’t sure how long they live in the wild. That’s one of the questions researchers are looking to answer.

"All animals have their roles in the ecosystem,” Heuring said. “Here at the zoo we want to try to preserve all of the diversity of life.”

Since the start of the snake release program, narrow-headed gartersnakes have returned to parts of the state they might’ve otherwise disappeared from.

“ We've learned over the last few years of doing this that we’re paving the way for getting snakes on the landscape at a much larger scale,” Ryan said.  ”Without these zoo breeding populations, we could never do that.”

At home, he keeps a photo of a Banksy: a young girl reaching toward a red balloon in the shape of a heart as it floats away. On the wall beside her, spray-painted letters read “there is always hope.”