From mainland Scotland down to Devon, and everywhere in between, there are snake hotspots located all over the UK.
There are three snake species native to the UK:
Adder
Grass Snake
Smooth Snake
The Adder is the only venomous species in the UK, the Grass Snake is the longest, while the Smooth Snake is “incredibly scarce”.
You may be wondering whether you are likely to stumble across one in your local area, or perhaps while you’re away on holiday (within the UK).
Why are they not in Cornwall?
They have only recently- last couple of decades - been reintroduced to Devon. That has been fairly successful, so I expect that there will be plans to reintroduce to Cornwall eventually.
Why did they die out there in the first place? Loss of habitat. They are very specialist and need a particular mix of heathland vegetation. Loss of heathland altogether and changes in management to the remaining land: overgrazing, undergrazing, ‘improvement’ by adding fertilizer (there were poorly regulated government grants for that at one point, that were abused and led to a lot of bracken and bramble taking over) and so on.
