During a typical year, some 55 million people pass through San Francisco International (SFO), the nation’s seventh-busiest airport. At some point during their journey to or from the terminal, each one of them will travel by a seemingly unremarkable 180-acre parcel of land, soggy and spartan, bounded by highways and train tracks, bisected by rows of power lines. It may look like any other overgrown vacant lot, but this one is home to the world’s largest population of the strikingly beautiful and highly endangered San Francisco garter snake. A recent study conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) confirmed the presence of approximately 1,300 snakes at SFO’s West of Bayshore property — it’s the greatest concentration ever recorded.

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