FREE PRESS (Burlington, Vermont) 09 November 05 Rare snake found dead (Candace Page)
Eastern racer snake No. 039, best known for a previous brush with mortality, died last week in Windham County of injuries suffered by being run over by a truck.
He was 15 -- or thereabouts.
"It was very sad. We had hoped we could get that snake safely through the winter," said Middlebury College researcher Jim Andrews, who first made No. 039's acquaintance last year.
Long, black and sinuous, No. 039 belonged to the rarest snake species in Vermont, where only seven other Eastern racers have been found. The snake lived most of his life in short grass, basking in the summer sun and denning up when the cold season came.
He acquired his name from Andrews, a herpetologist who captured and tagged the Eastern racer in 2004 as part of scientists' rediscovery of a species once thought extinct in Vermont.
No. 039 achieved minor celebrity last month when he was returned to his home after a Herculean effort by humans to save his life after a road accident.
The snake had been found July 14 on Interstate 91 with a broken jaw, badly injured eye and cuts and bruises. A veterinarian used a magnifying glass and thread as fine as hair to close the 039's cuts and sew his jaw shut until it healed.
Wildlife volunteers took No. 039 home, feeding him through a tube on a diet of pureed chicken, calcium tablets and cod liver oil.
Then the snake found himself the star of a news conference just before his release Oct. 5. State transportation officials used the occasion to tout their efforts to improve wildlife habitat near highway projects.
Andrews said biologists checked on the snake weekly in October.
"He was pretty healthy. He was relearning his territory and how to find his way around," Andrews said. In October, No. 039 survived flooding and an early snowstorm.
On Nov. 2, No. 039's body was found on a four-wheel drive road near his den in a state wildlife management area. He had been run over. Foul play is not suspected.
More docile than most of his nervous, quick-moving species, No. 039 is remembered with affection by the humans who cared for him this summer.
He is survived by a very small number of his species.
Rare snake found dead