There are those who are righteously afraid of or disgusted by everything in the animal kingdom except for dogs and a few homo sapiens. Everyone else need not fear Ontario's one venomous snake—the massasauga rattlesnake—so "experts" and government bureaucrats say.
"In the 1960s, when hippies were singing about free love and protesting the seal hunt, Ontario’s provincial park officials were clubbing massasauga rattlesnakes to death. But today, Kenton Otterbein, the head naturalist at Killbear Provincial Park, says campers are learning to live peacefully with Ontario’s only venomous snake, a species he describes as 'darn cute.'"
"Most people wouldn’t think of massasauga rattlesnakes as cute. But then, most people don’t know much about them. They are less than three feet long with a dark and light blotchy pattern."
". . . persecution by humans has relegated massasauga rattlesnakes to only a few pockets of habitat in Ontario, the most notable being the eastern shore of Georgian Bay."
"Seven people were bitten by massasauga rattlers in Ontario last year."
"Most human rattlesnake bites are associated with the consumption of alcohol (by the human, not the snake)."
paddlingmag.com
Offhand, when on canoe trips, I can't readily think of anything beneficial done for me by snakes or any member of the entire class of insects. Birds are okay. Mammals are rarely seen; and of those that are, most are pestiferous or scary, while others are interesting. I don't fish or eat them, so all the clades of fishes are irrelevant to me.
While canoe camping, I've only seen two rattlers up close and threatening, none in Ontario. I liked the headless one better, and thanked the old guy with a machete. Now, I'm the old guy . . . with four machetes.
"In the 1960s, when hippies were singing about free love and protesting the seal hunt, Ontario’s provincial park officials were clubbing massasauga rattlesnakes to death. But today, Kenton Otterbein, the head naturalist at Killbear Provincial Park, says campers are learning to live peacefully with Ontario’s only venomous snake, a species he describes as 'darn cute.'"
"Most people wouldn’t think of massasauga rattlesnakes as cute. But then, most people don’t know much about them. They are less than three feet long with a dark and light blotchy pattern."
". . . persecution by humans has relegated massasauga rattlesnakes to only a few pockets of habitat in Ontario, the most notable being the eastern shore of Georgian Bay."
"Seven people were bitten by massasauga rattlers in Ontario last year."
"Most human rattlesnake bites are associated with the consumption of alcohol (by the human, not the snake)."
Rehabilitating the Rattler
In the 1960s, when hippies were singing about free love and protesting the seal hunt, Ontario’s provincial park officials were clubbing massasauga
paddlingmag.com
Offhand, when on canoe trips, I can't readily think of anything beneficial done for me by snakes or any member of the entire class of insects. Birds are okay. Mammals are rarely seen; and of those that are, most are pestiferous or scary, while others are interesting. I don't fish or eat them, so all the clades of fishes are irrelevant to me.
While canoe camping, I've only seen two rattlers up close and threatening, none in Ontario. I liked the headless one better, and thanked the old guy with a machete. Now, I'm the old guy . . . with four machetes.
