For giggles, I thought I would look at the human population in the region and found a map of the whole state. Pretty much all of east Texas has stayed stable or lost population and some areas have a goodly amount of loss. I was thinking an increase in human traffic, errr vehicular traffic associated with more humans, more roads, etc. might be taking a toll on the snakes and while they do get roadkilled, that doesn't appear to be the issue at all.

https://usafacts.org/data/topics/pe...Date=2022-01-01&startDate=1999-01-01

So I did some more digging with your time frame in mind. Apparently, the Timber Rattlers were already in decline 25 years ago and researchers were trying to figure out why and there are several suggestions, but this isn't only about Timber Rattlers, but snakes in general. Then I found this that is really interesting. Snake fungal disease (SFD). This news article calls it both a fungus and a virus. It was discovered in Timber Rattlers in 2006.
https://www.cbs19.tv/article/tech/s...501-6be783e5-837c-473d-9565-a07f504ffc1c

This info is from the big heads in DC talking about SFD. Apparently, it is considered an emerging pathogen across the US that was first discovered in the US in the 1980s (in Illinois).
https://wdfw.wa.gov/species-habitats/diseases/snake-fungal-disease

A 3 year study ending in 2021 study found it present in over 15% (27 of 176) of the snakes examined from east Texas, but somehow researchers decided 1:10 has the pathogen.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/ffunb.2023.1064939/full

The disease itself isn't consider very fatal, but in reading various literature, it sounds like it works as another stress factor, weakening the snake's health such that they end up dying from something else more readily. So it would appear to be a comorbidity factor.

Also interesting is that it is thought to be much more widespread than it is, but not a lot of people are looking into it, or not doing geographical wide scale testing. It sounds like most of the studies that find it are studies being conducted after there is a known problem, but first the problem has to be known. Lots of animal deaths go unobserved. It is seems like only when the population noticeably changes that they will look for the cause.

Interesting! Thanks for looking into it.

Have lots of them down here brother.

I attribute the snake decline, in most cases, on pigs. But, the 4 year drought really hit all wildlife and it is still having an effect on all wildlife numbers around my area. This includes everything but pigs.

I no longer see snakes, squirrels, possums or coons. Turkeys are rare and used to be plentiful. Rarely hear coyotes howling unless we are dressing out a deer. No terrapins and very few pond turtles.

Deer appear to be rebounding and if I get Fall rains, I’ll plant about 5 acres of wheat.

I see no shortage of seasonal migrating birds or pigs.

About 5 miles South of Bowie.

Turkey decline I think can be blamed on hogs,they nest on creek and river bottoms and that's where the hog live and will eat any eggs they come across

Can they? What about where turkeys are on the decline in states with no hogs?
https://www.iowadnr.gov/About-DNR/D...ight-into-wild-turkey-population-decline
https://kansasreflector.com/2023/12...ecline-in-states-wild-turkey-population/
https://www.siouxfallslive.com/news...-wild-turkey-populations-in-south-dakota

Hogs are going to be part of the problem in areas where hogs are, no doubt, but they are far from being the cause. Hunting turkeys doesn't increase the population. Loss of habitat, particularly as large parcels of land are divided up and sold into smaller and small pieces. Toxicants are an issue. Droughts are doing a number on them as well. This is all in addition to ongoing predation by coyotes, foxes, bobcats, opossums, raccoons, snakes, eagles, owls, etc. (eggs, poults, and/or adults). You can add in domestic/feral cats and dogs.
https://www.aphis.usda.gov/sites/default/files/free-ranging-and-feral-cats.pdf

With all that said, your turkeys nesting in the bottoms where the hogs are are going to be, in part, due to loss of habitat. The bottoms are a refuge for turkeys that humans find harder to exploit for farming and development. So if the turkeys are numbers are going down because of hogs in the bottons, then then that concentration of turkeys isn't the fault of the hogs, right? Turkeys already live in the bottoms, but the live in the upland forests and prairies as well.

While hogs sometimes do live in the bottoms, they live just about everywhere and travel through and exploit pretty much all the environments from beaches to mountains.