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UNION-LEADER (Manchester, New Hampshire) 10 July 05 Once again, into a serpentine subject (John Harrigan)
Whenever I write about snakes I'm certain to get plenty of mail. A mention of rattlesnakes in a recent column earned me a spate of letters about not just rattlers but cottonmouths and copperheads as well.
Unlike the latter two species, rattlesnakes in New Hampshire, though now scarce, are well documented. The specific species is the timber rattler, somewhat smaller than its southern cousins but no less venomous.
Historically it was present mostly in the southern half of the state, but may have crept northward with fluctuations in the climate.
Abundant place-names attest to the former fairly widespread occurrence of timber rattlers. There is a Rattlesnake Island in lake Winnipesaukee, and if one looks on GS maps from the early 1904 series on, there are rattlesnake hills, swamps and ridges all over the place.
One of Rogers' Rangers is said to have died from a scratch from an old rattlesnake fang, which to me is a stretch.
Still, rattlesnakes were fairly numerous in southern New Hampshire up until widespread clearing of land for farming cut seriously into their habitat, and then of course the usual fear and loathing of snakes resulted in a great many rattlers meeting their demise.
So vengeful was society on snakes that there were annual attempts to get bounty bills passed in the Legislature. When I was first breaking into the newspapering trade, there were still old-timers on hand at Fish and Game who could recall these spirited debates.
One inveterate snake-hater, a man by the name of Frank Kensington, even walked down the center aisle of Legislative Hall carrying a sack full of rattlers and let them go, to prove his point that there were indeed a lot of rattlers in New Hampshire, and a bounty was indeed needed. He re-captured them quickly, but the legislators came down from atop their seats to vote the bounty bill down, snakes or not.
Several readers of the rattlesnake column wrote in to report sightings of water moccasins, or cottonmouths, in towns near or along the Bay State border. While not outside the realm of possibility (water moccasins are found as far north as central Massachusetts), these snakes are most likely northern water snakes, which look almost exactly like a cottonmouth but lack the wedge-shaped venomous-looking head.
Still, one reader was adamant. "It had the wedge-shaped head," he wrote.
Copperheads are even less likely, especially in light of the fact that New Hampshire has several species of colorful snakes that can be mistaken for them. Still, every year I hear from people who are sure they've seen copperheads.
For the record, here is the official Fish and Game list of snakes that are known to be here: timber rattler (on the endangered list and thus fully protected), black racer, northern water snake, common garter snake, eastern ribbon snake, brown snake, red-belly snake, ringneck snake, blue-green snake, milk snake, and eastern hog-nose snake.
If there are any others, I don't want to know it.
Once again, into a serpentine subject

I already wrote the author and asked him to correctly state the range of the Cottonmouth so harmless watersnakes don't get killed for fear they are Cottomouths.

Al
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"Fighting on the forums is like competing in the Special Olympics, even if you win, you're still retarded."

DH June 2005