Working group hears plenty of pros, cons on rattlesnake colony
@JackSuntrup
Thursday, March 23, 2017
WARE — The Rattlesnake Review Working Group has the thankless job of recommending what the state should do about the timber rattlesnake, an endangered serpent some revere as a New England symbol but nonetheless gives others the shivers.
On Wednesday, more than 100 people showed up at the Knights of Columbus hall here for the third of four public meetings to discuss the issue. About 30 of them spoke during public comment.
The working group — a gathering of state wildlife personnel, elected officials, in-the-know citizens and scientists — is supposed to offer recommendations to the state Fisheries and Wildlife Board about how the officials should manage the endangered species in general.
But public comments mostly centered around a now-shelved plan to establish a colony of the venomous snakes on Mount Zion, an island in the Quabbin Reservoir.
Second in line for public comment was Sue Grant of Northampton.
“Oh that refuge on Mt. Zion,
The citizens, of course, will foot the bill,
There’ll be plenty of venom on Mt. Zion,
When the rattlers reach the refuge on the hill.
No walls can confine them in that refuge,
They may leave it by swimming if they will,
The fishermen will watch the ripples spreading
When the rattlers leave the refuge on the hill.”
Others were less graceful, and more forceful, in their opposition to ideas floated by wildlife officials. One idea is increasing the population of an established colony of rattlesnakes on Mount Tom, which straddles Easthampton and Holyoke.
“Don’t you dare put these snakes on Mount Tom,” said Martin Fedor of Easthampton. “Snakes bite people. We put dogs down that bite people. You people want to save all these snakes? Fine! Put ’em in Vermont, where they’re not near people!”
Protection owed
Laura Cunha, of Easthampton, said the Mount Tom idea, something to which the Holyoke City Council has preemptively voiced its opposition, is attracting less attention than the Quabbin proposal.
“It’s a far cry from putting them on an island at the Quabbin,” she said. “There’s a lot of people who go up on there — a lot of hikers, a lot of children — my daughters, myself, people with pets.”
