Timber Rattlesnakes in Vermont and New York: Biology, History and the Fate of and Endangered Species.(Book review)

Timber Rattlesnakes in Vermont and New York: Biology, History and the Fate of and Endangered Species

Furman, Jon

The University Press of New England, Hanover and London

228 pages

This book is a fascinating account of the Timber Rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus) in the most northerly portion if its range. The narrative explores the ecology, fears, politics, bounty systems, and modern efforts at conservation of this maligned species, which once inhabited one third of the area of the lower 48 states. Large portions are now unoccupied and other portions are now isolated dots on a map. In spite of over a century of persecution, the species is not federally listed and both states had bounty systems in place until the early 1970s. New York and Vermont now protect rattlesnakes, but habitat loss and incidental killing and still common.

Furman begins with a broad, informative account of the species biology including size, longevity, prey preferences and demography (Chapters 1 and 2). Few researchers have studied this species in any depth, but, because of the 30-year efforts of Professor William S. Brown of Skidmore College, it turns out that we know a great deal more about timber rattlers in this region than in many others. Perhaps the most relevant finding is that individuals reach sexual maturity later, and females produce litters less often, than most populations elsewhere. Given the short growing season in the Adirondacks, this is no surprise. But it also means that the loss of a few adult females can have large demographic consequences. Furman's accounts of the species' abilities to smell, to sense prey through the heat receptors in their facial pits, and of females (who mate in summer) to store sperm and fertilize their eggs the next spring are all quite informative for the general reader. His accounts of the talus slopes in which snakes gather--which also make them easy to persecute--are equally illustrative, as is what happens when a snake bites, and survivors' accounts of some who were bitten (Chapters 3 and 4).

But as someone who knows a fair amount about snakes, these are not the parts of the book that most piqued my interests most. In fact, Chapters 5 through 10 get into many issues that make formerly common species rare, and they should be eye-opening to all. The snake oil industry of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which caused commercial depletion of this and other rattlesnake species, is explored in Chapter 5, as is the recent and disturbing demand for poisonous snakes in the pet trade. Bounty hunting is taken up in Chapter 6 and it is here where human foible is most pronounced. The three counties in Adirondack New York that have rattlesnakes, and the adjacent county in Vermont, all had bounties; like bounties everywhere, they were subject to fraud and the scams were many and ingenious. Bounties were only paid for snakes killed within that jurisdiction by residents, but little stopped people from killing them elsewhere and bringing them home for payment. Some non-residents ...