By Curbing Roundups and ‘Gassing,’ States Seek to Help the Hated Rattlesnake

"People want the outdoors to be as safe as their child-proof living rooms," said John Davis, wildlife diversity program director of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. "Outside is not as safe. As people urbanize they lose sight of that. It's a cultural issue."

The timber rattlesnake, whose scientific name crotalus horriduscomes from the Latin words for rattle and dreadful, once was found in 31 states. But its numbers have declined precipitously in the East, as construction has destroyed its habitat and people have killed it, sometimes inadvertently by running over the snake on the road. Today, the timber rattler is no longer found in Maine and Rhode Island. And Connecticut, Indiana, Ohio, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Vermont and Virginia list it as threatened or endangered.

In Massachusetts, the timber rattlesnake has been a symbol of strength since colonial times. There's a coiled timber rattler on the yellow Gadsden "Don't Tread on Me" flag first used in the American Revolution.

Today, only about 200 timber rattlesnakes survive in five scattered sites across the state. Besides human predators, the timber rattler faces another threat: fungal infection. With the help of a $500,000 federal grant in 2013, the state is working to boost the number of timber rattlers in the wild while trying to fight the disease.

MassWildlife chose Mount Zion, a 3 1/2-mile-long, forested island that’s supposed to be off limits to people in the Quabbin Reservoir in the central part of the state for the effort. The state proposed moving up to 10 rattlesnakes to the island each year starting in 2017.

"It's important that we stand up for endangered species," Republican Gov. Charlie Baker told reporters in May.

But public hearings on what became known as the Snake Island plan drew angry, emotional crowds who worried that the snakes could easily leave the island — they’re good swimmers — and attack nearby residents, pets and tourists. Wildlife officials said the snakes would have what they need on the island and were unlikely to leave. Besides, biologists plan to attach radio transmitters to the snakes and could track any that got away.

State officials apologized for poor communication and pledged to restart the planning process.

State Sen. Eric Lesser, a Democrat who represents Belchertown, a main visitor access point to the reservoir, introduced an amendment to the state budget that would impose a one-year moratorium on the plan. It has been approved by the Senate and goes to a conference committee with the House this summer.

Despite claims that the island is remote, Lesser pointed out that it’s connected to the mainland by a short, narrow causeway, and an outhouse on the island is used by boaters and fishermen. Plus, he and his constituents worry that the presence of snakes will hurt tourism in the area.

"It's not exactly the best publicity to have news article after news article about breeding poisonous snakes," he said.

There's also lingering animosity toward the state about the creation of the Quabbin Reservoir, which provides drinking water for the city of Boston, Lesser said. Residents of four communities were relocated and their towns flooded when it was built.

"We were merrily going on with the science, and we neglected the social," said Jack Buckley, head of the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife. "We have to work to get this right."

In Texas, the Parks and Wildlife Commission last month directed the wildlife department to draw up a rule by November to ban the 'gassing' of rattlesnakes, which could mean the end of a major way rattlesnakes are hunted in the state.

Hunters typically use a common garden sprayer containing a few ounces of gasoline to spray gas or fumes into a den, wait half an hour and collect the rattlesnakes that emerge. Wildlife officials say the practice harms 130 species of rare invertebrates that exist only in Texas and 26 federally listed invertebrates that coexist with the rattlers in crevices and caves.

But people in Sweetwater, Texas, who bill their Rattlesnake Roundup as the world's largest, say that without gassing, the number of rattlesnakes collected would be drastically reduced.

At the most recent roundup in March, organizers bought a record 24,262 pounds of Western diamondback rattlesnakes at $10 a pound. About 25,000 people attend the roundup last year, more than doubling Sweetwater's population and providing $8.4 million in economic impact.

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By Curbing Roundups and ‘Gassing,’ States Seek to Help the Hated Rattlesnake

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