People are not happy about a plan that the state of Massachusetts has to conserve indigenous timber rattlesnakes, mostly because said plan sounds like something out of a bad horror movie. The state wants to protect 200 or so of the endangered, and yes, extremely venomous snakes by creating a colony on Mount Zion, a 1,400 acre uninhabited island in the middle of the Quabbin Reservoir, a 39-square-mile body of water in central Massachusetts.
The only problem with this plan is that snakes can swim, and to make matters worse, the island is connected to the mainland by two causeways. Still, Tom French of the state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife chalks up the public backlash as “completely irrational fears based on the public’s aversion to snakes.”
“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.
Well, obviously, that’s what I’m afraid of, personally, and I live four states away from Massachusetts. One local hiker, Bob Curley, approves of the rattlesnake preservation effort in general, but thinks Mount Zion is not the place for it due to concerns of land access being affected around the reservoir in general.
“When the inevitable happens and there is an interplay between a hiker and a rattler, what’s the repercussion?” said the Athol resident, who said his dog was bitten by a rattlesnake last summer. “Are the trails around the Quabbin going to be shut down?”
A public meeting will be held this week to discuss the plan and presumably quell residents who imagine their homes and streets turning into a literal reenactment of “Whacking Day” from The Simpsons.
(Via CBS 10 News)