It's the blogging about it that is the poison:
"Quabbin ‘rattlesnake island’ idea leaves some squirming" by Nestor Ramos Globe Staff January 24, 2016
NEW SALEM — The state’s plan to revive a native endangered species on a remote island sounds suspiciously like the opening scenes of a horror movie: Breed and raise 150 venomous timber rattlesnakes until they’re good and strong, then turn them loose on protected land in the middle of the Quabbin Reservoir.
What could go wrong?
“Well, they swim,” said Peter Mallett, president of the Millers River Fishermen’s Association, who opposes the plan. The notion of 150 big wet snakes finding their way to shore and setting out for the neighboring hiking trails and homes has him wondering which population ought to qualify as endangered.
The state Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, where the plan was hatched, offered assurances that a small island full of rattlesnakes would pose no threat.
Forgive me for having some doubts, but given this state's track record regarding management and truthfulness....
Any that escape the island will die during the following winter, unable to make it back to their nest, said Tom French, assistant director of the department. And in reality, rattlesnakes are shy creatures who bite people only when threatened, he said.
Yeah, somehow it's our fault, as if reality was something one would find in a newspaper.
But some local residents aren’t so sure, and the debate is now hung up in a tangentially related dispute over whether a local man’s dog was really bitten by a snake last summer. The proposal has also struck a deeper nerve here, where some still mourn the loss 75 years ago of the four towns erased to make room for the reservoir that provides drinking water to Boston.
This part of the state has always been dumped on.
“There’s a lot of resentment,” said J.R. Greene, a local historian and author, and the chairman of Friends of the Quabbin, a nonprofit group devoted to promoting and preserving the reservoir’s past and present. Some fear the rattlesnake island plan could lead to the closure of the popular recreation area around the reservoir, Greene said — “another example of Boston lording it over this part of the state.”
To be fair, the snakes were here before any of us.
Oh. For once the misanthropic Globe is being fair with its agenda-pushing.
Timber rattlesnakes once slithered through forests and feasted on mice and chipmunks all over Massachusetts. But deforestation over the last two centuries left little habitat that allowed for their deep underground nests in winter. Today, only a few isolated populations remain in the Blue Hills, the Connecticut River valley, and Berkshire County.
They have also faced less passive persecution.
Since the two species’ earliest encounters, terrified humans have been hacking the heads off of snakes. Some still do.
It's a survival response and they are guilt trip us over it.
So what do we do with lying, war-criminal leaders and their mouthpiece pre$$ that have led to the deaths of millions of people over damnable lies?
That's a horror movie!
French said the whole point of putting them on an island is to protect the snakes from people, not the other way around.
No offense, but if the snakes were already gone what is the point?
What is with these people?
Rattlesnake bites are exceedingly rare in Massachusetts, French said, and haven’t been fatal since Colonial times. Venomous snake bites these days almost always involve someone doing something exceptionally foolish: Attacking or trying to grab a snake, or keeping one as a pet.
It’s illegal in Massachusetts to keep a venomous snake as a pet, but people do it: Someone on Cape Cod was bitten by his pet cobra. He lived.
“Science does not carry the day in these kinds of things,” French said. “Emotion does.”
That was when I became skeptical of the state plan.
Must be the hypocrisy.
He’s not entirely opposed to the snake island concept.
In the horror movie, those would be his famous last words....
These are going to me mine regarding this, but you can continue viewing if you want.
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I did leave you an antidote given to me by the pre$$:
"Probiotics are said to improve digestive and immune health. They’re touted as potential treatments for conditions ranging from inflammatory bowel disease to eczema to tooth decay. Some marketing campaigns even hint that they can prevent the flu. Scientific evidence, however, does not necessarily support those claims. Studies in rodents and small groups of humans point to possible health benefits of consuming probiotics. But there have been only a few large human trials — in large part because Food and Drug Administration rules have dissuaded food companies and federally funded researchers from conducting the types of studies that could confirm, or refute, the proposed benefits of consuming “good” microbes. Based on the smaller-scale studies done so far, there’s no indication that probiotics can treat obesity, autism, diabetes, or high cholesterol. Nor do they seem effective against the flu or common cold. “The whole field is under a bit of a cloud,” said Stephen Allen, a professor of pediatrics at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in the United Kingdom."
Erin Andrews lied?
This is the last time I'm going to open my mouth today so I can avoid the venom of pain in my lower arms and elbows that is striking me more and more often and with increasing frequency the longer I blog.
UPDATE:
"Snakes, says Dr. Matt Lewin, are “like little mobile land mines”: They’re invisible, lying in wait in populated areas, killing or maiming without warning. Worldwide, tens of thousands of people die from snakebites every year, but an existing drug could change that."
More like $nakebit at this point.
RELATED:
"Lawmakers hiss at plan to introduce endangered snakes on island" y Steve Annear Globe Staff April 05, 2016
Not so fast, snake breeders.
Beacon Hill lawmakers want to suspend a state plan to establish a habitat of endangered timber rattlesnakes on a remote island in the Quabbin Reservoir until they can hold a hearing on the issue and speak with constituents.
“We want to make sure we are ahead of this and have all of our questions answered so that nobody — especially from the local community — is caught off guard,” said state Senator Eric P. Lesser, a Longmeadow Democrat....
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