News

Massachusetts Plans To Create 'Rattlesnake Island' Of Venomous, Endangered Serpents

By R. Siva Kumar | Update Date: Feb 23, 2016 10:32 AM EST

There is a new, rather 'venomous' plan afoot in Massachusetts. It is scheming to create a colony of poisonous timber rattlesnakes on an island in a 30-square-mile Quabbin Reservoir, reports CBS News.

Even though they plan to make the area off limits, it is terrifying to have an idea of an island seething with snakes. There may be innumerable hunters and fishermen traversing the area too, fear residents.

Hiker Bob Curley requests that it should be relocated.

"When the inevitable happens and there is an interplay between a hiker and a rattler, what's the repercussion?" said Curley, who says that his dog was bitten by a rattlesnake last summer. "Are the trails around the Quabbin going to be shut down?"

Tom French of the state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, the chief of the project, calls the worries communicated by various residents totally unfounded.

"People are afraid that we're going to put snakes in a place of public use and that they are going to breed like rabbits and spread over the countryside and kill everybody," he said.

Gov. Charlie Baker is also hands on about the project. He points out that the snakes are timid and attack only when incited. The only deaths on record in the island date back to colonial times.

At present, just 200 of the endangered snakes that are native to Massachusetts are left, and they are all spread out in five pockets from greater Boston to the Berkshires. Due to human killings and the loss of habitat, this species has rapidly declined, and might even become totally extinct here.

© 2023 Counsel & Heal All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.

Join the Conversation

Real Time Analytics