Sauga Film

07/21/2026

People and Pit Vipers (and also a ratsnake)

These stills come from the Venomous Handling Essentials course hosted by Midwest Friends of Wildlife. People from all walks of life and all academic backgrounds can learn how to safely work with native US venomous species, and for some folks (like myself) this class is a gateway to getting involved in eastern massasauga conservation.

One thing I absolutely loved about the course I had the privilege to film and photograph was the amount of women who signed up. The venomous world feels very male dominated, and I’ve seen time and again in comments sections all over social media people being doubtful or negative towards women in the reptile and venomous communities. So the course that day being made up of mostly women was really cool to me and felt kind of special!

If you’re in Michigan, the Midwest, or don’t mind traveling, I highly recommend the class. There will be a session this weekend at Howell Nature Center so I figured this week is a good time to post some of my stills!

06/22/2026

Really great day in the field yesterday doing some visual surveying for EMR! We only found one but it was cool to see one in blue! I also got to try out my new lens and it’s safe to say that I’m absolutely in love. I cannot wait to capture more herps with it.

Big thank you to The Nature Conservancy in Michigan for allowing myself and my volunteers to walk your site and try to document the unique herpetofauna and other cool wildlife there!

06/20/2026

The video has finally been released! Last month I took to the field with my friends at Midwest Friends of Wildlife and SW Michigan Land Conservancy for our final eastern massasauga rattlesnake survey of our field season. We were joined by none other than Snake Discovery as they documented our conservation work for their audience! It was a great field day where we turned up 3 EMRs, two of which were new captures.

Check out their video on their YouTube channel!

05/21/2026

Always a pleasure hitting the field with these folks!

05/06/2026

Spent Monday and Tuesday this week on EMR surveys in southwest Michigan! Not too many photos from these days because I was helping out with captures and data collection but I scrounged up a couple stills!

Southwest Michigan Land Conservancy and Midwest Friends of Wildlife are partnered up to monitor these awesome snakes across multiple sites. It’s really important work and I love getting to be part of it.

03/01/2026

A reupload of my favorite stills from our time up in Northern MI for some massasauga work, and a recap of my favorite story and wildest experience with a wild EMR!

Ian and I were both filming and participating in surveying, so we were in the survey line actively looking for snakes with the team. I found one by nearly stepping right on it, and called over our designated capturers. The snake darted under some pine needles from a fallen tree. Because I was assisting with the actual capture, we don’t have (usable) footage. I helped with moving the branches to uncover the snake and trying to keep an eye on where it was. Our unit leader, Nate, went in with the tongs to capture it. The snake moved again right toward me as I was holding up these pine branches and coiled up next to my foot rattling like mad. Nate went for the grab, the snake ran again and slithered right across my feet before he eventually caught it.

Not once was that snake interested in striking me despite me nearly putting my foot directly on it. They much prefer to hide or flee if they can. I always tell my team when we’re filming around EMRs is that the best thing to do if they make a run at you like that is stay still and let them move on. I wasn’t posing the biggest threat to the snake- the guy trying to catch it with the tongs was, so it ignored me completely.

It’s very easy to not get bit by these guys! Their fangs are too small to pe*****te proper footwear like muck boots or hiking boots. If you encounter one, leave it be and admire it from a safe distance. They won’t chase, they won’t want to hurt you, they just want to survive!

11/04/2025

Venom saves lives! Dusky pygmy rattlesnakes are a cousin to Michigan’s massasauga, and they play a pretty important role in medicine. A protein in their venom was used to develop an anticoagulant called Eptifibatide, which is used in both cardiac procedures and to manage certain cardiac events/conditions. If you or someone you know has had open heart surgery or needed medical intervention for a cardiac condition, there’s a chance that a rattlesnake saved your life!

10/24/2025

Wide shot of one of the four dusky pygmy rattlesnakes that I got to see down in Florida last month. I really like the composition of this shot so I wanted to post it individually. It’s really great for showing the sort of habitat they like to frequent.

I’ve wanted to get footage of these guys for our massasauga film for a long time now. The dusky pygmy is a close relative to our saugas (both in the Sistrurus genus) and having some footage to compare the two was always on my mind. I just never thought I’d get the chance to go down south to get that content. I’m very happy with how the shots came out.

More close-ups coming soon.

08/15/2025

A threatened species and Michigan’s only venomous snake, one massasauga mom was discovered in a culvert at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens with snakelets in late July. Now, they’re moving toward their winter habitat.

08/12/2025

I need to shout out Sauga crew members Maddie Gingerich and Arie Antonakis, who were our DPs on the shoot that the still is from! It was back in 2023 where we interviewed Adam Austin and got b-roll of a mock handling course for our film (we cannot film the real courses). That was my first time directing something adjacent to a “reenactment” for a doc, and I remember it was quite fun.

Come this fall once my weekends are freed up again, I’m planning to grab a couple more formal interviews with folks from SWMLC and MNFI, and then we should be ready to wrap production and get to editing!

Once again to keep up with our production status, follow us here and feel free to share the page!

Are you a land manager, environmental consultant, first responder, homeowner, zookeeper, veterinary professional, biologist, herpetology enthusiast, photographer, or anyone looking to learn how to safely handle venomous reptiles while receiving a professional certification? This course is for you!