BHA Podcast & Blast, Ep. 128: Alabama Herpetologist Jimmy Stiles The Conecuh National Forest in south Alabama is known as the Heart of the Longleaf, a landscape of tall pine and wiregrass, restoration and recovery, humming with life and comprising a wild diversity of plants and wildlife found nowhere else. Field biologist, herpetologist, student of deep time, and full-time hunter and fisherman Jimmy Stiles lives and works in the Conecuh, leading efforts to recover the endangered indigo snake (North America’s largest and arguably most impressive snake species) and restore the longleaf forests that were once the southern U.S.-dominant ecosystem – all while having a rollicking good time way out there in the farthest reaches of the wild, hot, buggy and snaky Deep South. Hal caught up with Jimmy on Oak Mountain in Alabama this spring at the BHA Southeast Chapter Backcountry Jubilee.