Think of them as tasty leftovers from a recent meandering phone conversation with state Deer Project Leader David Stainbrook about the 2015 preliminary deer harvest. Nothing big. Just a few interesting observations about deer behavior gleaned and stored for future reference after delving into a peripheral discussion about a Penn State deer-collaring research project Stainbrook led a grad student.

An indelible lesson learned was that even when researchers knew deer were very near, the stoic hoofed critters were nearly invisible and impossible to find bedded in brushy undergrowth. Although Stainbrook didn’t attempt to quantify what percentage stayed put and what percentage fled, or the buck-to-doe ratio of those that stayed, he came away from his project amazed once again by the uncanny ability of deer to blend into their habitat, not to mention their bold nerve to ride out close encounters by remaining still and smartly alert while allowing human intruders to pass by. Just a long honed survival skill.

Stainbrook said some bucks were gone well before anyone could get close, but they quickly returned to the vacated area anywhere from 30 minutes to a few hours later. The rest hung tight, hidden, and let the researchers pass right by.

“Deer blend in so well when still; they were amazingly tough to see, even when we knew they were right there with big black collars on their neck,” Stainbrook said in a discussion spinning off local hunters’ perception that our local deer herd is shrinking, contrary to MassWildlife claims. “It did not appear to be based on individual deer — e.g., skittish deer versus deer that stay put — but rather on other factors like weather conditions. It depended on how noisy we were and how well they could sneak out unheard and unseen, but also how close we got to them, and how noisy we were.

“One interesting thing I learned by investigating bedding sites from some of the mature bucks was that they selected sites that were nearly impossible to sneak up on without them seeing or smelling you. That is likely why they lived to adult age and why we hunters have such a tough time meeting up with mature bucks that show up on our trail cameras.”

So chalk up this tidbit of information as just a little food for thought for hunters who have likely walked right past many a wise, wary, confidently bedded trophy buck that chose to hide rather than run. More often than not, the strategy works in the deer’s favor, especially during coordinated drives involving many hunters working in unison with walkie-talkies.
Then again, how many times have you heard successful hunters tell their tales of shooting monster, wall-mounted bucks that they discovered curled up at the base of a gnarly hemlock tree in a damp, dark swamp during a windy, driving rainstorm, or, then again, standing motionless behind a clump of smallish trees that make them practically invisible.

It’s why experts implore deer hunters to move slowly, make little noise and always diligently scan the area through which you’re passing with optimal care and focus. Sometimes the only detectable clue of a deer’s presence is a slight flick of an ear or slow head movement. And even then, a hunter must be efficient to quickly shoulder a gun and hit his or her mark before the deer springs up and is, in a flash, gone.

Time to clean out the desktop pile of gathered snail-mail and email printouts, all containing interesting comments from readers who reacted to topics covered here recently, particularly Quabbin rattlesnakes, which created quite a stir, plus analysis pertaining to the recent preliminary Massachusetts deer harvest.

It gets better. We’ll also take a look at comments from a man who, after reading about the rattlesnakes, wanted to report numerous highway moose sightings that have crossed his path while passing through Quabbin Country. Then, last but not least, comments from an amusing letter to the editor from “The Pied Piper of Quabbin,” who didn’t make it to print because of the unacceptable pseudonym. We’ll let that slide here.

All of the comments have from the start been worth sharing. Yet, till now, there’s been no way to work them into previous narratives. So, here we go with a plateful of feedback leftovers from four readers.

– – –

Let’s start with Kathy-Ann Becker of Wendell, acclaimed author of the 2013 novel “Silencing The Women: The Witch Trials of Mary Bliss Parsons,” the 17th-century Northampton wife of William Pynchon’s fur-trader extraordinaire Joseph Parsons, from whom we both descend.

Though we have in the past discussed our genealogical profiles, this latest string of emails pertained to an early Pioneer Valley rattlesnake incident she learned of while scouring primary records to glean helpful information for her novel.

She prefaced her little tidbit of 17th-century history folklore with, “Here is written testimony (misspellings unchanged) from the case of Mary Bliss Parsons that pertains to rattlesnakes,” dated Aug. 18, 1656, testified on oath before William Houlton and Thomas Bascum:

“George Alexander, Samuel Adams and Goody Webb testifieth that they were present when the ox of William Hannum was stung with the rattle snake and they did notice nothing but what might come to pass in an ordinary way that thy killed the rattle snake.”

Then, in further under-oath testimony before Elizur Holyoke, Hannum recalled, “… going to Windsor (Conn.) with my oxen and cart and about 4 mile from our town (Northampton) as I was going whether my ox hung out his tongue or whether he went to eat for it fell out that a wrattle snake bitt him on the tongue and there he died. These things doe sometimes run in my mind that I cannot have my mind from this (Parsons) Woman that if she be not right this way she may bee the cause of these things, though I desire to look at over the rulinge hand of God on all.”

Four miles south of Northampton would have placed this unfortunate 17th-century incident at a location known to this day as a rattlesnake lair — the area surrounding Mt. Tom.

– – –
Moving from vipers to large quadripeds — namely moose — this little gem from daily Orange-to-Springfield commuter Mark LaBier, to whom moose sightings along Route 202 have become common:
“I have been driving to Springfield for 20 years and have seen hundreds of moose, usually mothers and little ones. Today, traveling south through Pelham, there were two huge bulls, one in the left lane, one in the right lane, first time ever I was scared of hitting them. Is this normal?

Hmmmm? Not sure how to answer that question.

“Also, if there is any (future) talk of (mountain lions), I have seen one chasing a coyote in Orange right by the Mattawa exit, and I have seen so many different animals and birds of prey that it makes the drive awesome.”

– – –

Next up, responding to last week’s column about the preliminary 2015 deer harvest and unconfirmed suspicion by hunters that the deer population took a serious hit due to winter mortality last year. Questioned about that possibility last week, state Deer Project Leader David Stainbrook said MassWildlife looked into it but its investigation bore no fruit.

Well, get a load of this information from reader Jason MacLean, who wrote:

“I started hunting Zone 11 about three years ago, and once I finished graduate school started hunting more seriously. Scouting this past summer for the upcoming fall season, my buddy and I found 11 winter/coyote kills (it’s tough to tell the difference). My friend shot a deer this year during archery season and by the time he climbed down from his tree stand, a coyote was already chewing on the deer’s leg. Bold, huh?”

Yes. Bold indeed. Not surprising, though. Similar tales have been circulating for years among deer hunters beaten to mortally wounded deer by a coyote or coyotes.
MacLean wasn’t through. He also had this suggestion:

“We’re doing our best to hunt coyotes so more fawns survive to adulthood but we can hunt only Saturdays due to our work schedules,” he complained. “It would be awesome if MA was like RI, and coyote hunting was year round on private property with Sunday hunting permitted.”

Just a little food for thought.

– – –

Last but not least, back to snakes and The Pied Piper of Quabbin, who I hesitate to call a conspiracy theorist but can’t be far off.

Responding to the column titled “Rattler flap,” first mention here of MassWildlife’s proposal to stock endangered Timber Rattlers on a Quabbin island, the ole self-described Pied Piper harkens back to the 1930’s when, soon after wiping four rural towns from the face of the earth to supply clear, cold water for thirsty Boston, which had polluted its own, it was discovered that filling the large reservoir had sent rats scurrying to the uplands and out of harm’s way. To take care of this rat problem at farms and homes along the reservation’s periphery, the state apparently thought rattlesnakes would be a tidy solution. Well, according to The Pied Piper, the plan was indeed carried out under the assumption that the snakes would reduce the rat problem in a hurry then die off over winter, which didn’t go as planned.

According to The Piper, “Some of them … survived in pockets that are all (not coincidentally) adjacent to/near the Quabbin.”

But he wasn’t done yet. Uh-ah. He next decided to jump into the global-warming/climate-change debate as it relates to rattlesnakes and other wildlife.

“Now, if you make a scientifically based assumption that the climate of this area of New England, just like ‘global climate,’ is constantly cycling between warmer/cooler, and has been for all geologic time, you will realize that certain animal populations go up and down naturally, along with the temperature cycles and related factors, such as predator-prey cycles.

“Recently, MassWildlife declared a problem (extinction) and wants to solve it by introducing rattlesnakes to a Quabbin island to ‘protect and enhance endangered species in the name of conservation.’”

“Haha … back in the 1930s, they just wanted to get rid of rats. … Quite a commentary on how far societal ‘values’ have drifted from practical reality.

“I wonder if there are any rats on that Quabbin island — or anything else rattlers eat? And once the rattlers eat their fill, what’s next? Weekly speedboat CARE packages of snake food — at taxpayers’ expense?”

There’s more, but any idiot can see where it’s going.

Yes, that Quabbin-rattlers story is a tale that just keeps on giving. The folks who proposed it should have known it would get a little wild. It has. Not over yet.

The preliminary 2015 Massachusetts deer harvest of 9,910, released late last week by MassWildlife, was mediocre compared to recent harvests but not surprising from a western Massachusetts perspective.

Gone are the days when Franklin County woods most favorable to deer hunting were patrolled annually by eastern Massachusetts visitors hunting where their chance of success was greatest. Who would have ever dreamed that just the opposite would occur a generation or two down the road? Yes, that’s right, western Mass. meat hunters are now traveling to the eastern half of the state to supply venison for their freezers, be it during archery, shotgun, primitive-firearm or all of the above seasons. Why? Very simple. With higher deer densities confined in smaller patches of woods, the EMass success rates are far higher. Not only that, but in some deer-management zones, hunters can obtain multiple antlerless deer permits, and bowhunters have the luxury of setting up on deer that live along the edge of residential neighborhoods and are thus more accustomed to and less wary of human scent.

What it all adds up to is EMass numbers like those released last week. Although preliminary, the 70/30-percent harvest breakdown moving from the eastern to western halves of the state doesn’t figure to change much when state Deer Project Leader David Stainbrook releases his final report in the coming days That’s just the way it is nowadays, and the way it has been for at least 20 years. And don’t expect the current formula to change anytime soon. Not when the deer-management team intentionally manipulates its most effective deer-management tool — antlerless permits — to encourage hunting pressure eastward. That way, they can reduce suburban highway carnage where deer populations are densest while simultaneously building WMass numbers by drawing away hunters. Another factor in favor of reducing EMass deer densities is Lyme Disease, which is carried by deer ticks that can create serious health risks. Yes indeed, people living in suburban deer country have arrived at the point by now where they’ve developed tick and Lyme Disease phobia. Particularly vulnerable are children playing outside, and that doesn’t even address expensive Lyme Disease issues pertaining to dogs and other household pets as well as some livestock, especially horses.

As for the preliminary numbers, the eight Deer Management Zones in the western half of the state (Zones 1 through 7, with Zone 4 split into north and south) produced a total of 2757 kills during the archery (920), shotgun (1,347) and primitive-firearm (490) seasons. That represents a meager 30 percent of the statewide kill. Western hunters produced 22 percent of the archery harvest, compared to 33 percent of the shotgun and 31 percent of the primitive-firearm harvests. The eastern half of the state (Zones 8 through 14) registered 6,950 kills, which represents 70 percent of the statewide tally.

A harvest in the five zones west of the Connecticut River (Zones 1-4N/S) was 1,829, while the three zones bordered by the eastern bank of the river (Zones 5 through 7) produced 1,131 kills.

The state’s top harvests came from Zones 11 (2,141), 10 (1,920), and 9 (883). Combined, those three represent half of the statewide kill. Zone 11 is located in southeastern Massachusetts, mostly Bristol and Plymouth counties, Zone 10 is located in northeastern Massachusetts, all of Essex and some of Middlesex and Norfolk counties, and Zone 9 ventures into Worcester, Middlesex and Norfolk counties. So, in a general sense, the majority of our deer are now being killed in an area bordered on the west by Worcester and Leominster, on the northeast by the North Shore and in the southeast by Fall River and Plymouth … not by any stretch traditional deer country unless you want to go back to colonial times.

Franklin County hunters bemoaned the abundant hard and soft mast that made it nearly impossible to pattern deer last fall. And even when the fellas did “get into deer,” they had to kill them on the spot or expect their prey to vanish into a plethora of adjacent feeding areas where they weren’t pressured. Once those deer found a place to hunker down and feed, they’d stay when hunter pressure didn’t follow. And even when hunters did discover their new hideouts, they’d easily find another out of harm’s way.

In recent years, Stainbrook’s deer-management team has been trying to reduce deer densities in eastern Zones 10 through 14, stabilize them in central Zones 7 through 9, and increase them in Zones 1 through 6. In 2010, when the western Zones 2 through 7 had estimated deer densities of 12 to 15 per square mile, the management team wanted to up levels to 15 to 18. Last year, Stainbrook decided “to make the goals a more realistic 12 to 18 deer per square mile,” with some areas obviously holding more than others.

“It’s tough to gauge deer population in a place like Zone 4 North when I’m getting conflicting calls telling me there are too many deer in one area while people nearby are asking where all their deer went,” Stainbrook said. “We’re working on increasing populations out there but are up against it in old- and medium-growth forest,” where deer populations stay flat at best. Deer numbers grow quicker in areas where responsible logging is regularly occurring, leaving in its wake thick hardwood-regeneration-phase plots rich in winter browse.

“You can’t beat browse like sugar-maple saplings that sprout up after someone’s maple orchard is thinned out,” Stainbrook said. “We encourage landowners to keep their woodlots healthy and vibrant through forest-management plans that promote wildlife and healthy ecosystems.”

Many local hunters groused this past season about winter-kill and coyote predation as two major factors leading to a perceived reduced deer herd from 2014. Well, Stainbrook paid heed and did explore that speculative assessment by encouraging MassWildlife’s Connecticut Valley Wildlife District staff to investigate any reported deer carcasses. The problem is that wildlife biologists found no evidence of high winter mortality by starvation or predation during the difficult winter of 2014-15.

Another factor contributing to local hunters’ lack of success during the most recent deer season can be attributed to an ever-shrinking hunter pool in Franklin County woods that were once inundated with enthusiastic hunters moving deer throughout the day and improving everyone’s chance of seeing and/or killing them. Now, during a warm snowless season like the most recent, an ever-diminishing hunter pool can really be up against it to fill deer tags in habitats chock full of acorns, apples, grapes and you name it.

Potentially, an entirely different, more favorable scenario will unfold for deer hunters next fall. At least that’s what the folks most frustrated this past year are hoping.

Fact is, you never know. That’s a challenge sportsmen welcome, and can come away victorious with due diligence.

– – –

Longtime North Orange reader Micheal Moore (no, not that Michael Moore) chimed in with an interesting local rattlesnake tidbit related to the mention here of a controversial MassWildlife proposal to stock Timber Rattlers on a secluded Quabbin Reservoir island.

Moore recalls “reading in your (news)paper or the Brattleboro Reformer about a forest fire in West Brattleboro in 1958 or 1959, when thousands of Timber Rattlesnakes poured out of the ledges and spooked firemen. At this time, they were pretty sure they’d eradicated them from most of Vermont, so everyone was shocked. The point I took from the incident was that even though the woods were apparently full of them, no one seemed to see them, was bitten by them or had their dogs bitten.

“You suspect firemen from southern Vermont, Massachusetts and New Hampshire must have hunted, fished or hiked those woods, and some of them probably even lived in the woods. Still, never a reported snakebite. I’ve since tried to find the article to no avail. Otherwise I’d forward it, but I’m thinking you’re likely handier than me at news research, so it might be something you could come up with.”

So far, after cursory Internet searches using various keyword combinations, no further information on the reported Brattleboro wildfire snakes. If anyone has recollection or documentation, please do respond to the email address listed below.

Meanwhile, in conversation with Recorder administrative assistant Diane Poirier Tuesday afternoon about the possibility of uncovering an old Recorder clipping about the snake-infested Brattleboro inferno, she immediately recognized the eerie tale learned as a child from her mother, a Gill native.

“Oh yeah, I remember that story,” she said with a little shiver. “It used to give us the heebie-jeebies.”

Hmmmm?

Further research necessary. Hopefully, it’ll bear succulent, salubrious fruit.

The deluge of timber rattlesnake comments continues following two weeks of discussion here about the state’s plan to establish a population of the venomous snakes on Mt. Zion, the large, isolated Quabbin Reservoir island and no-man’s land that’s off limits to humans.

MassWildlife’s justification for the proposal is that no reptile is slipping faster toward extinction than the timber rattler, and thus it’s high time to reverse that troubling trend. That said, state officials and proponents can’t with a straight face pretend they didn’t expect some sort of clamor once their plan leaked out. Yes, one had to presume the inevitability that a public largely unaware that it has always lived with rattlesnakes (and poisonous copperheads, for that matter) without ever having seen one was bound to react hysterically when apprised of the plan. And, yes, the public knee-jerk reaction was indeed negative. Oh what a stir it created. Poisonous snakes can do that to people, especially card-carrying ophidiaphobes, of which there are many. But let’s be honest. Fair or not, is there a more predictable target of public scorn than government agencies and their humble public servants? So let’s not act surprised by the unfavorable, accusatory buzz, particularly that emanating from the North Quabbin Region.

Put on your thinking caps and consider this: Given the fact that, no matter what the state says, there are already rattlesnakes top to bottom in the Pioneer Valley’s hills and dales, wasn’t it only a matter of time in these days of global warming and reforestation before rattlesnakes started coming back like bears and moose and many other formerly displaced wildlife species before them? Well, maybe not, considering the state disclosure that this endangered reptile is in serious peril due to road-kill and human contact. But it still makes sense that a warming climate would eventually open the possibility for more rattlers and copperheads, which have always been more prolific in warmer southern climes than here.

Anyway, most of the feedback this space has fielded was aimed at its own speculation that, despite claims that the last places of refuge for rattlers in the Bay State are located in Hampden and Hampshire counties and the Blue Hills area south of Boston, they are here, too, if you know where to search. Problem is that fewer and fewer folks are patrolling remote, difficult woods, particularly high, ledgy spines with snake-inviting talus slopes, shale beds and leg-breaking rock slides. It’s not the kind of terrain hikers gravitate to for summer frolic, in many cases because savvy upland explorers know that’s precisely where you’re most apt to encounter potentially dangerous serpents from the evil underworld.

Enough!

Now for a quick look at the more interesting feedback to cross this desk in the past week:

• The most detailed correspondence came by email late last Thursday night from a Colrain man. He wanted to tell a tale that unfolded before his very eyes “five or six years ago” while walking his two unrestrained dogs along the ridge-top trail following the Pocumtuck Ridge overlooking Wapping and Old Deerfield, south of the Eaglebrook School ski slopes. Yes, it was up there that he spotted something halfway onto the trail in front of him which caught his attention and turned out to be “the biggest snake I had ever seen in the wild,” estimated at “three or four feet long and very thick.” Because his dogs had already passed the viper without incident, the intrigued hiker decided to investigate closer, which may or may not be legal when dealing with an endangered species.

“It was elongated, motionless and brown,” he wrote. “In the back of my mind I wondered if maybe it was a rattler because I had heard of sightings on the Holyoke and Mt. Tom ranges. Like an idiot, I picked up a very long branch … and slowly extended it toward the snake, which promptly snapped into a tight coil with the tail rattling away at the center.”

He thought about reporting his sighting to MassWildlife but never got around to it because he figured it wasn’t all that rare.

• Earlier last Thursday, around 9 a.m., the home phone rang and it was a familiar Greenfield man who made it clear that he wanted to remain anonymous. An avid hiker who’s no stranger to upland terrain where rattlers are most apt to lurk, he himself has never encountered one but assumes he’s unknowingly passed many in his travels. He cited hiking trails on Mount Toby and Northfield Mountain as his two most likely haunts to contain rattlers, but was more interested in recounting the tales told many times by his mother, who grew up adjacent to what is today Greenfield’s Cherry Rum Plaza when it was undeveloped, wooded, swampy terrain during her childhood. She was fond of telling her sons of the rattlesnakes killed by neighborhood boys near a well-known den along the southern edge of White Ash Swamp. This den was associated with an outcropping of ledge overlooking Cherry Rum Brook. So, take it to the bank that even today, 70 years later, if someone seriously searched for rattlers along the ridgeline overlooking the Connecticut River, exploring also the steep, stony, eastern and/or western slopes of Rocky Mountain all the way from Canada Hill to Bears Den overlooking Bingville, there’s a good chance you could find a rattler.

• That bold prediction focused in Greenfield gains credence when you consider additional feedback that arrived last week about a mountain north of the state border, across the Connecticut River from Brattleboro, Vt., named here last week (Mt. Wantastiquet) as the 1961 site where a power-company laborer had killed a rattler displayed in Adams Donuts’ parking lot. Considering what correspondent Wendy Gaida reported about that site, it’s more than likely that rattlers still exist there. Ms. Gaida responded to last week’s column to report that she grew up in North Hinsdale, N.H., at the base of that mountain whose Indian name she had never heard until she was an adult. No, the only name she knew for Wantastiquet was the vernacular “Rattlesnake Mountain,” where her family forbade summer play due to rattlesnake fears.

“We were told there were thousands of rattlesnakes up there,” she recalled. “Everyone talked about it, including my grandparents, who also lived in North Hinsdale. They summered dry cows up there but never allow us on the mountain except in the winter.”

• The final feedback arrived from none other than a brother-in-law nestled into faraway idyllic retirement on a gentleman’s farm in Waldo County, Maine. Spurred by mention here last week of the ballad “On Springfield Mountain,” about a young Wilbraham man killed by a rattlesnake in 1761, he had a tale to tell from his childhood on Somers (Conn.) Mountain, a stone’s throw from the Springfield Mt. of Woody Guthrie ballad fame. He recalled capturing a snake and placing it in a grass-filled pickle jar as a curious 5- or 6-year-old Somers lad. That snake became part of the family, transmitting absolutely no bad vibes until neighbor Chan Hubble stopped by on his way through and the young lad decided he may want to see his captured pet, which he fetched and brought just outside the hilltop home’s front door.

“There, to my astonishment, upon looking into the jar, old Chan went absolutely wild, immediately screaming, ‘Copperhead!’ and dumping my little snake out on the ground in front of my mother and me. Once the snake was out, Mr. Hubble leaped unexpectedly into the air time and again — each time crashing down with his heavy boots on my precious little snake and bellowing, ‘Copperhead!’
“To this day, I have no idea what type of snake that was. And, of course, once old Chan was done dancing, which lasted the better part of a minute, a forensic scientist would have had trouble determining that the mass on the ground was a snake, never mind what type of snake it was.”

Oh yes, snakes sure can bring out the worst fears in a man, especially a committed ophidiophobe, which ole Chan Hubble may very well have been.

That young boy, now a trusted brother-in-law and devoted naturalist, got a close look at the reaction one can expect when such fears kick into high gear.

You can’t make it up.

It’s true that the bright waxing moon in the cold winter sky shouldn’t evoke visions of vipers. Yet, go figure, a long persecuted New England snake is indeed this week’s unseasonable topic.

Snakes, in January? you ask, bemusedly scratching at your temple with your index finger.”

Yeah, snakes in January. Better still, Timber Rattlesnakes — those venomous vipers of colonial New England lore that once sent shivers up the spine of many a man, woman and child working around the wood pile or traipsing barefoot through the summer woods back in the day. Nowadays, you can still find this feared, misunderstood, endangered reptile locally around the talus slopes of Mounts Tom and Tekoa south and west of here. But when’s the last time you heard of a rattler sighting anywhere in Franklin County? Likely never, and for good reason. According to an information sheet published by MassWildlife’s Natural Heritage & Endangered Species Program (NHESP), rattlesnakes no longer exist in this county, which may or may not be true … probably not.

Common sense’ll tell you that a man could probably cross the path of a rattler if he went searching in remote pockets of local, stony mountains, even around the cliffs of the Sugarloafs north and south, or maybe rocky outcroppings and treacherous upland rock slides on Mt. Toby or high in our western hills — places like, a wild guess, the western slope of High Ridge overlooking foreboding Guinea Gulch and the beautiful Conway State Forest.

The indigenous people who greeted the first European explorers to New England were often adorned in clothing that displayed traces of our native rattlesnake, be it decorative skins worn like belts around the waist, bands for the arms or legs, or long, sharp, ominous fangs strung into a string of beads or onto clothing worn ceremonially or for formal wear. So, it’s a fact that this poisonous snake was here, and not uncommon, either, until Euro-Americans decided they were dastardly demons that must be extirpated, the sooner the better. Thus bounties were offered and the wanton destruction began, bringing about a rapid decline that now borders on extinction. Yes, much like the native folks who wore their skins and fangs with pride as symbols of the underworld, from the colonial perspective, the only good rattlesnake was a dead one, and killing them was encouraged.

So now, get a load of this — wild but true — there’s currently a MassWilfdlife proposal supported by respected wildlife biologist Tom French, Division of Fisheries and Wildlife assistant director for NHESP, to establish a wild population of Timber Rattlers on a large, unspecified Quabbin Reservoir island. Although the proposal has not yet been approved, it seems likely that it will be, given the NHESP responsibility to protect and enhance endangered species in the name of conservation. Plus there’s added incentive to rebuild our rattlesnake population now, before it diminishes even further: never before has there been a population decline close to that of the past 30 years. No question, it’s time to act.

I got wind of the proposal more than a month ago from a reliable North Quabbin Region source, who, frankly, I doubted a little bit. Yes, during a telephone conversation with always-affable Millers River Fisherman’s Association founder Peter Mallet of New Salem, this country character questioned the wisdom of stocking rattlesnakes on the Quabbin, remote island or not, and claimed that the North Quabbin Trails Association was up in arms about it.

“I know it sounds crazy,” Mallet gasped, “but this is real. I got it straight from a game warden. Don’t these people know rattlesnakes can swim?”

Well, in fact they do. French-generated information about the proposal furnished by MassWildlife Information and Education guru Marion Larson acknowledges that rattlesnakes are good swimmers but speculates that despite this ability, a small, isolated population would have no reason to leave a secluded, paradisiacal Quabbin island believed to have supported historic rattlesnake populations before reservoir flooding dramatically changed the landscape. Although that may well be true, it is far from absolute, especially if after many decades overpopulation stimulates forced migration in all directions.

Something gleaned from the short narrative written in favor of the Quabbin proposal that’s likely misleading is the declaration that “all of the documented bites from wild snakes since colonial times can be counted on one hand, and there have been no life-threatening encounters since colonial times on record.” Although this may be true, the words to focus on are “documented” and “on record,” both highly rhetorical. The question is: How many rattlesnake bites from the 17th and 18th centuries were “documented,” that is formally reported and recorded by town, county and/or state officials? The answer is likely few. And to claim that no one ever died from a snake bite is at best weak. Cursory research of the colonial period reveals many reports of rattlesnakes and a fear of snake bites to people and livestock alike.

Indians were experts at treating poisonous snake bites. The first move was to open the skin with a knife and suck the blood from the wound at the point where the fangs penetrated the body. Then they had wild-plant antidotes and salves or powders to counter the effects of whatever poison remained. But it is highly unlikely that no New England pioneers from the wilds of early uninhabited pockets of New England succumbed to snake bites. Though probably not prevalent, random death had to occur unless accompanied by Indian scouts or maybe equipped with a pouch of herbal remedies learned from them.

Because rattlesnakes are now an Endangered Species, it is absolutely illegal to kill them. The MassWildlife map pinpointing these snakes’ current range show them present in Berkshire, Hampshire and Hampden counties and south of Boston in the Blue Hills region. They can be identified by their triangular head and narrow neck but can vary in color from jet black to sulfur-yellow with black, brown, or rust-colored blotches separated by cross bands on the back and sides. What distinguishes the Timber Rattler from other rattlesnakes is their lack of stripes or bands on the head and face, and their solid black tails. Adults measure 3 to 5 feet in length, not a pretty sight to someone who comes upon one unexpectedly.

According to the NHESP information pamphlet, Timber Rattlers are most often found in mountainous terrain characterized by second-growth deciduous or coniferous forest, with step ledges, rock slides, and large rodent populations. They are sometimes found in pine barrens and wetlands, and may occasionally be found in fields and pastures.

Our warming climate could make the Northeast even more favorable habitat to Timber Rattlers, which hibernate in caves and stone crevices from mid-October to mid-April.

But is stocking them a good idea? The jury’s still out.

The email message, linked to another from before Thanksgiving and its prompt response, was sent by Laurie Banas from Hatfield by way of South Deerfield, where her Frontier classmates will remember her as Laurie Magelinski. She was just checking in to provide her final update on a memorable deer-hunting season.

In November, Ms. Banas had touched base to tell about an unusual bow-hunting occurrence that unfolded before her doubting eyes on the way to her tree stand. Out of the corner of her eye, she had caught movement entering an old, overgrown field, identified it as a wild-turkey flock and decided to “snuggle up against a tree” to watch. In the process of counting more than 30 birds — many of them young, frisky jakes “making quite a ruckus” by strutting, faux-sparring and taking short flight in a playful maturation ritual — she was surprised to find among them a bright blue anomaly. Yes, to her utter disbelief, accompanying the turkeys was, of all things, a peacock.

“Yup,” she wrote, “hard to believe. Had to look and look and look again. Sure enough, a peacock. Bright blue. No ornamental feathers, but the little dicky-doo thing atop his head. Thought I had seen most everything, but never a peacock thinking it was a turkey, and a very fancy one at that.”

Accompanying the note were photos taken and sent by her cell phone. Yes indeed, a lonely peacock roaming with a flock of turkeys. Banas declined to name the site, and who can blame her for protecting the location of a favorite deer stand?

Prior to that peculiar sighting, from reading between the lines, the archery deer season could have been summed up as uneventful, perhaps even bordering on boring. Which doesn’t mean she hadn’t had her moments. She had, after all, according to a postseason email, let fly and missed a nice 6-pointer and seen many does that kept her enthusiasm piqued. She thus kept carefully trudging to her secluded tree stand mornings and/or evenings in pursuit of an antlered buck and the cabin-fever-soothing venison such a kill deposits in her freezer. Then, lo, proving once again that perseverance pays, her fortunes changed dramatically during the shotgun deer season, which she put an end to in rapid fashion, putting a lot of the local boys to shame.

Yes, according to her most recent update, Ms. Banas bagged back-to-back bucks on Days 1 and 2 of the two-week shotgun season. Not only that, but there may have been a little karma involved, given that she was hunting one of her late dad’s favorite haunts.

“I always go to my dad’s old stomping grounds as a tribute to him — a way to reconnect with that space and time,” she wrote, referring to former part-time South Deerfield cop, Stanley Magelinski.

Well, this time Dad’s spirit must have been present in the fall wind to push deer toward her. At 8:30 a.m. Day 1, she killed a scrappy 5-point, 115-pound buck with a broken main antler beam, likely from fighting. Then, 24 hours later, at 8:45 the next morning in the same spot, she killed a 7-point, 110-pound buck to end her season in a flash. Perhaps she had prematurely ended the reign of twin 2- or 3-year-old buckaroos. Or maybe they were just random, unrelated young bucks passing the same stand nearly a day to the minute apart.

With rapid-fire success in the rear-view, Ms. Banas was confronted with the bleak reality that her season was over unless she was up for helping others hoping to fill their harvest tags. Nope, not her cup of tea running around the woods trying to move deer for others.

“Honestly, I am not into helping people drive deer,” she wrote, “so it was a boring December, for sure. But, all tagged out, I saw many more deer after that on back-road drives.”
Sounds like one of those years all deer hunters experience if they stay at it long enough. Some years you can’t see a flag. Others, well, no matter where you go, there are deer.

Luck of the draw.

Could conditions have been any more favorable for hunters allowed for the first time in more than a half-century to kill bears during the 12-day shotgun deer season?

Well, not likely, with weather bordering on surreal and the woods literally full of a wide variety of wild foods. In fact, many hunters who were in the woods to experience the first go-round last month may never in their lifetimes see a better scenario unfold. Then again, who knows? With the planet said to be warming at an alarming rate, Decembers and Christmases similar to those we just witnessed may indeed become more the rule than the exception. But let’s not go there. It’s become a political hot potato that can get hotter by the second, and pretty ugly.

According to MassWildlife Bear Project Leader Laura Conlee, the preliminary bear harvest during deer season was a respectable 53, including that humongous 498-pound bruin shot in Quabbin country by an Athol hunter and first suspected to be a state record. However, further checking by MassWildlife Information and Education guru Marion Larson revealed that a bigger bruin had indeed been taken, and not that long ago, either. The record beast weighing a whopping 541 pounds was killed just three years ago in Southwick. Bagged during the 2012 September season, that 15-year-old bear stands as the state record since records have been kept. Both massive bears were males that were weighed field-dressed. Estimates suggest both animals would have tipped the scales at between 600 and 700 pounds live weight — nothing a man would want to pester during weekend woodland travel.

How warm was it during the first shotgun deer season allowing bear hunting in recent memory? Well, try this on for size. There were reports of nightcrawler picking past Christmas, and open-water Barton Cove anglers were casting lures from bass boats in shirtsleeves on New Years Day. The reason the unseasonably mild, snowless deer season offered ideal late bear-hunting opportunity was that the warmth, coupled with an overabundance of nuts, fruits and berries, kept foraging bears active longer than cold, snowy years. Had there been deep snow, frigid temps and sparse mast crops, much of the food would have been gone early and many bears would have been denned up in their dormant winter hibernation stage when, contrary to prevailing wisdom, they are rarely totally out of commission but are for sure less active and available to hunters.

Although Conlee agrees with the assessment that conditions for bear hunting during the most-recent deer season were optimal, she is certain some bears will always be available during shotgun deer seasons. Thus she’s confident that hunters will continue to produce a consistent supplement to the bear harvest regardless of conditions. In the process, hunters will furnish a needed alternative method of keeping the annual bear harvest on the upswing and maybe even meet the goal of stabilizing the statewide population before it gets out of hand. Fact is that suburban bears are already causing issues east of here, and the problems will spill out to the hinterlands and multiply if the population keeps growing unchecked. The previous split, six-week bear seasons simply weren’t meeting harvest goals.

Bears most vulnerable to deer hunters over the long haul will, according to Conlee, be solitary wandering males, barren sows and mother sows with growing yearling cubs. Bears that fit that mould hold out as long as they can in search of food to build fat reserves for lean winter dormancy. Even during difficult winters, some bears will come out of their dens on mild days to search for food. Although Conlee said the preferred late-fall feed is high-protein acorns and beechnuts, they will also seek out apples, black cherries, berries, and large, hard nuts like butternuts, hickories and walnuts, which are more than deer can handle. She said bears have no problem crunching up the bigger, harder nuts, and actually seek out hickory and walnut or butternut groves with good yields.

Something interesting in the wake of our first simultaneous shotgun deer/bear season in many years is that the 2015 bear harvest will actually be less than that of 2014, when bears were not fair game to shotgun deer hunters and mast crops were spotty at best, not nearly as bountiful as this year. The incomplete 2015 harvest shows 175 bears killed during September and November, plus a preliminary 53 during deer season for a total of 228. That’s 12 fewer than the September/November 2014 record total 240. Hmmmm? So how did that occur?

One factor that could lead to higher numbers during mediocre mast years like 2014 could be that bears have fewer places to feed and are thus easier to pattern and predict. Such places would include silage cornfields and commercial orchards, both of which provide easy access and open sight lines for rifles. However, even though cultivated foods were a factor in that 2014 harvest, the numbers don’t bear out a majority of cornfield kills. In fact, Conlee reported that only 14 percent of the 2014 harvest came from cultivated food sources, compared to 68 percent from wild foods, 14 percent from swamps and 17 percent from softwoods. Apparently, a majority of the successful hunters had — as a result of diligent scouting, evaluation and intuitive planning — discovered productive wild-food pockets during a spotty year and their scouting paid dividends.

Conlee said bears can grow accustomed to eating corn and become pests by developing a preference for it, but she doesn’t believe that is typical behavior or even that it’s as common as prevailing wisdom would suggest. To the contrary, she said bears prefer variety and take whatever’s available in a given year, and may just focus on productive nut groves even when corn and orchard fruits are ripe, rampant and easy picking. Which doesn’t preclude orchard and cornfield damage during bountiful natural-feed years like 2015, when bears will still switch it up from time to time and take a little of everything in their travels. Still, if natural feed is abundant, with exceptions, Conlee thinks most bears will seek it out and not focus primarily on cornfields and commercial orchards. Plus, she said, wise old bears that have been pressured by farmers an/or hunters over the years quickly adapt and learn to feed on cornfields at night after legal hunting hours.

So now, following our first combined deer/bear season in generations, questions remain and will surely linger for many years to come. Eventually, though, we’ll know precisely what the new twist means in the big picture. Think of it: How could this season extension into deer season not aid the initiative to harvest more bears in an effort aimed at population control and reduction of potential human conflict?