There was no time, really, to question whether this was a good idea.
Thursday, May 1, I found myself among 20 state conservation officer trainees, walking into the woods toward a known population of timber rattlesnakes
“What did I just do?” I thought to myself when it was all over, as the adrenaline wore off and anxiety crept in.
We were walking into a minefield, with the potential for injury and even death always a step away as we invaded the rattlers’ territory. This analogy came from Mike Parker, communications director for the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, who lugged a video camera on the trek.
Mike is the reason I’d been able to make the trip — him and, indirectly, Don Jacobs. Jacobs hosted Pennsylvania Outdoor Life on WNEP-TV 16 for 43 years before retiring, his last episode airing last month. This show was a staple in my house growing up, my father never missing an episode. One from 2012 featured rattlesnakes, and I asked Mike in April whether the Fish and Boat Commission — management of the state’s reptiles and amphibians falls under its jurisdiction — had any events coming up that I could cover with these dreaded denizens of the forest.
In fact they did: the May 1 training excursion in Clearfield County, just a four-hour drive from home. (Pennsylvania is a big state!) My editor OK’d one night in a hotel and I was there, feet clad in leather hunting boots to hopefully protect against any snakebites.
The timber rattler’s venom does major damage, and we were in a wilderness with no cell service. The trainers had arranged for quick evacuation of anyone bitten to receive anti-venom treatment at nearby Penn Highlands Clearfield hospital before being flown to Pittsburgh for further care.
Separated by only brief dry spells, someone was always finding a rattlesnake as the Fish and Boat Commission waterways conservation officer cadets capped the snake training portion of their yearlong course culminating this summer in their graduation. Once assigned anywhere statewide, they may have a chance to inspect a rattlesnake hunter’s bag during the open summertime season, or be called on for any number of interactions involving the venomous species.
These pit vipers writhed on the ground, coiling and striking out with deadly heads as the trainees and Fish and Boat biologists caught them with 40-inch-long tools and coaxed them into protective tubes, to shield themselves from a bite. The tails buzzed incessantly during the encounters, unless held still by a handler — a handler as in someone holding a rattlesnake.
I handled zero rattlesnakes as we traipsed on and around a south-facing slope about 2,000 feet above sea level in north central Pennsylvania’s Quehanna Wild Area. What I did was keep a close eye on the ground around me, glancing up only briefly to shoot video or photos or to jot down a name or other detail.
“Nobody’s getting bit,” trainer Vance Dunbar, a retired conservation officer himself, had told the cadets mustered for the outing. He went on to share the keys for him to be able to keep his word: “Don’t put your hands, your feet or your ass anywhere your eyes haven’t been to first.”
The den area is the site of a more than 20-year-old study of the timber rattlesnake, and the training session pulled double duty as a chance to gather data on the Quehanna population.
The future officers aided by the biologists measured the snakes and determined their sex by counting their subcaudal scales. Each specimen was checked for snake fungal disease, which many exhibited. Female rattlers were palpated on their underside to see if they’re gravid, or carrying embryos. The researchers Thursday used a radio-frequency reader to see if the captives carried an identification chip.
Only five of 63 rattlesnakes observed were confirmed to have had a radio-frequency identification chip previously embedded under their skin. That’s a sign of “a really nice robust population,” said Chris Urban, Fish and Boat’s natural diversity section chief and non-game coordinator: “So that’s really good to see.”
Another 23 rattlers received a chip embedded beneath their skin at the hands of the biologists and cadets.
The truth about rattlesnakes, I learned, is that these are normally docile animals that just want to be left alone. But they get feisty when disturbed and manhandled.
Nobody got bit.
All in all, it was well worth sharing the efforts to study and protect this ancient species that first appeared some 12 to 14 million years ago, researchers say. They certainly deserve the respect of humans, who have only been around for 300,000 years or so.
(Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com.)
