GAZETTE-TIMES (Corvallis, Oregon) 18 August 07 The mystery of Wren’s rattlers (Kyle Odegard)
Wren: Since he was a little boy, Ryan Nash has been interested in reptiles. At Philomath High School, science teacher Jeff Mitchell stoked his interest, guiding Nash to specialize in the snakes of Benton County.
So one night last summer, the 23-year-old amateur reptile expert got a phone call and headed out to the Wren area after hearing that residents there had made an unusual discovery.
Two rattlesnakes were basking on a road near the foothills of the Coast Range. Though it was shortly after dusk, the scaly critters were trying to soak up heat left on the asphalt, Nash said.
Rattlers have been found again this summer in the Cardwell Hills area of Wren, and local wildlife experts are nearly certain snakes were dumped there in 2006.
“We were kind of all hoping they would die over the winter,” said Dave Vesely of Corvallis, who does field study in the Wren area as owner of Pacific Wildlife Research. He is also executive director of the Oregon Wildlife Institute.
Now Vesely worries the snakes may be reproducing and that a permanent population has formed in Benton County.
“It becomes a serious safety issue,” he said.
There are several sightings, though some are unconfirmed. At least one isn’t. A couple killed a rattlesnake in their garage on Aug. 9, said Karen Fleck Harding, outreach coordinator for the Marys River Watershed Council and a member of the Wren Community Club.
Last year, a horse was bit in the face by a rattlesnake, she added. “It was treated and it was fine,” Fleck Harding said.
Nash said the snakes he found last year — which he still has — are two different breeds of rattler, and one is native to eastern Oregon, not the Willamette Valley area.
Rattlesnakes used to be found all up and down the valley. “This was their range, but with logging and farmland, the dens got disrupted,” Nash said. Some pockets still exist, such as near Brownsville, he added.
Vesely said that when he first heard reports of rattlesnakes, he thought that people were mistaking gopher snakes for rattlers.
A gopher snake can mimic rattlesnake behavior as a defense mechanism, going so far as faking striking and shaking its tale to stir up any debris, such as dried leaves, to make a rattling sound, said amateur snake expert Eric Weeks of Corvallis.
“If people see one, and they don’t know if it’s a rattlesnake or not, leave it alone,” Nash added.
Nash urged people to call him to check things out at 207-7391, or to call 9-1-1 if they thought they were in immediate danger.
The mystery of Wren’s rattlers

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