By John Vincent
On Further Review
I’ve seen several people weigh in about the state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife’s ab¬surd plan to introduce rattlesnakes into an area where they’ve been eradicated for generations — this area — and I want to add my venom to the pot of those saying that this is completely ridiculous.
It’s obvious there are people working for the state who have nothing better to do than to think up ways to kill us and protect those who can’t protect themselves — like rattlesnakes.
Oh yeah, they’re venomous snakes. They can protect themselves.
Anyway, I guess it’s being seriously suggested that rattlesnakes be brought in to live on an island at the Quabbin Reservoir.
That probably sounds like a faraway, isolated place to people from Boston, but it’s actually about 20 miles from here, a half-hour drive.
And people do live in these here parts.
I know most people in Boston think this area is “Where there be trees,” but people actually live in the Gardner area, and that includes Templeton and Phillipston and Petersham, which are even closer to our new friends, the snakes.
With Heywood Hospital’s new Quabbin Retreat in Petersham, we could probably use this to test the effectiveness of the medical system, possibly changing the name to the Quabbin Retreat and Rattlesnake Triage Center.
But seriously, beside a few recovering addicts and some “hicks from the sticks,” who’s really going to be in danger of getting bitten? Nature nuts? They just love a good “I almost died from a rattlesnake” story. We could probably start charging admission to the Quabbin Reservoir just so people can try harassing the snakes and see whether they live to tell about it. I’ve seen a lot of that on TV.
Plus, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the video they have online of a bald eagle battling a rattlesnake, but that was some seriously great entertainment. How could you be opposed to that? And the Quabbin Reservoir already has bald eagles … I’m just saying.
The people from Fisheries and Wildlife have all said that these wimps who don’t want rattlesnakes are clearly overreacting.
“They’re just petrified of snakes,” one person said.
Well, sorry for wanting to live. No one wants to go out for a walk and get bitten by a rattlesnake.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that there are about 8,000 venomous snake bites a year in the United States, and only five or so people die a year. So if that’s not you, what are you complaining about?
I know my sister used to go hiking out at the Quabbin Reservoir. She always wanted me to go, too, so she could take me to Soapstone Mountain, which was evidently a place where you could pick up loose bits of soapstone that you could then later carve into interesting shapes.
That sounded like a fun thing to do. But not anymore.
It’s really not worth risking my life over.
I’m going to say that before they go ahead and drop a bunch of rattlesnakes in our neck of the woods, maybe we should hold a vote and see how many people actually want the snakes.
Then we can have another vote on how many people actually want the snakes who go around telling us what’s good for us out here.
This column ran in The Gardner News on 3/11/2016.