I admit the idea of stocking an island in the middle of the Quabbin Reservoir with adult timber rattlesnakes gives me the willies. I hate snakes of all sorts and have joked about adopting a mongoose, but I’m only half kidding.
That said, the best reason to oppose Rattlesnake Island is that state wildlife officials presume to know what the Quabbin ecosystem needs.
It surely doesn’t need slithering serpents to control rodent populations, as several advocates have insisted. In my time at the Quabbin I’ve yet to observe field mice spiriting away small children, nor has my car ever been attacked by mohawked, leather-clad, chain-wielding chipmunk gangs. There are already plenty of critters feasting on rodents, including myriad hawks and owls and resurgent bald eagle populations.
About those eagles: They have returned to our area and here’s the role state game officials played in their recovery: none.
The raptors aren’t alone in that. In the early 1970s there were said to be fewer than 100 black bears in all of Massachusetts; now Pioneer Valley residents routinely observe them munching at backyard birdfeeders. Game officials estimate there are now 4,000 bears in Massachusetts, a figure those who spend time in the woods find risibly underestimated.
How about moose?
Two decades ago a moose spotting was on par with seeing a unicorn; now our highways are dotted with moose crossing warnings and there may be as many as 1,000 of those tank-sized ungulates snorting around — roughly one for every 10 square miles of the commonwealth.
For the record, there are already several small rattlesnake colonies in the Bay State, including one in the Blue Hills near Boston and another on Mount Tom.
Eagles, bears, moose and even rattlers have thrived or survived with no input or assistance from the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. Wilderness is not a zoo; it’s an ecosystem. There are a handful of success stories related to species reintroduction, most notably grey wolves in Yellowstone and bison herds in the Plains, but these are deceptive.
Yellowstone is, in fact, essentially a big zoo — and a heavily patrolled one at that. Bison recovery was more basic. Buffalo, which never actually disappeared, are basically just shaggy, weak-eyed cows on steroids. Their survival was simple: we stopped shooting the poor dim creatures.
But those who’ve read Peter Vancini’s recent story in the Valley Advocate know the sad details of a spectacular failure in our area: the effort to re-establish Atlantic salmon in the Connecticut River.
It was a noble idea, but after tens of millions of dollars and 45 years of trying, the effort was abandoned in 2010. Salmon might someday return to the river, but a river ecosystem that now sports 54 dams would have to change dramatically for that to happen.
If those dams should disappear, smart money is that salmon, like black bears and moose, will come back on their own — slowly but inexorably.
Good intentions and good science are not always the same thing. Ecosystems are more complex than simplistic release and repopulate plans.
Let those timber rattlers continue to slither in a Rhode Island zoo. If the Quabbin ecosystem needs rattlers, Mother Nature will provide in her own way and time.
Rob Weir lives in Florence.