To most of us, that snake two-step would be a blunt karmic message to never walk in the woods again. But not Vermont’s rattlesnake man, Doug Blodgett, a Vermont wildlife biologist with a touch of the luck of the Irish – and importantly, a guy who wears heavy boots and canvas, fang-proof gaiters.
Blodgett is a steel-nerved outdoorsman and scientist who is to Crotalus Horridus – sometimes Latin doesn’t need translating – what Dian Fossey was to Rwandan gorillas and Jane Goodall was to chimpanzees. Which is to say, a passionate researcher and advocate. In his case, it’s for a fierce-gazed creature he says is misunderstood, wrongly feared and reviled.
That empirical view is based on more than a decade of scientific study and up-close and personal contact with the small rattlesnake population that resides in the rolling hills of western Rutland County (as well as across the border in New York).
“It is the original native Vermonter. It has an important place in our ecosystem and has always been part of Vermont’s history. Rattlesnakes don’t have too many friends, and they could use a few,” he says.
Still, even for a pre-eminent and experienced researcher – he estimates he’s handled “several hundred” – stepping on a big fat rattlesnake can scramble the adrenalin glands. As Blodgett puts it: “There’s nothing dull about it” when you’re tromping around in rattlesnake country.
“It’s a heightened sensory experience for me,” he says, describing it also as “being really jazzed.”
In those terms, the past two years have been quite a jazz fest. Working on a project with The Nature Conservancy and the Orianne Society, Blodgett captured 144 rattlesnakes in the wild, implanting radio transmitters under the skin of 27 of them, as well as taking DNA samples. Many days spring through fall, he went out in the woods and rocky hillsides carrying a bulky antenna, earphones on his head, using radio-location to find and track the snakes, mapping their behavior and whereabouts.
The goal was to understand timber rattlesnake movements and habitat, valuable information for an endangered species whose daily lives remained remarkably little understood. “I do feel they’ve gotten a bad rap, a bad image and bad reputation that I’ve come to learn is very much undeserved, and they are secretive and reclusive, and we did not know as much about them a few years ago as we do now,” Blodgett says.
In his research, Blodgett has discovered that rattlesnakes have an elaborate memory, with home ranges they hunt each year and even specific paths they follow between winter dens and hunting areas. Males will travel from the den as much as 2 1/2 miles, females less, perhaps 1 1/2 mile, and pregnant females even less, concentrating on developing their embryos.
“They know where they want to go and where they’ve been,” he says. “They know exactly where they are on the landscape. That really surprised me, but it shouldn’t have, because in order to be successful, that’s what they should be doing.”
His experiences have taught him that rattlers are “ambush hunters” that live almost entirely on small rodents. “They are not out there wandering aimlessly looking for something to eat,” he notes. They coil or lie patiently still for days in areas where they have had success with prey, eating perhaps every week and a half or two.
Now that the radio transmitters have been removed, the study’s information can help in preserving the small reproducing population and its travel pathways. The Vermont Nature Conservancy has been a key partner, buying around 1,000 acres critical to their habitat starting in the late 1980s.
An “8th generation woodchuck” born in Burlington, Blodgett is a University of Vermont graduate with deep family roots in the Northeast Kingdom. “I knew in high school working with wildlife was what I wanted do,” he says. “I was very fortunate it worked out for me.”
Blodgett has been with the Fish and Wildlife Department for 32 years in a well-respected career that includes being wild turkey team leader and the go-to expert on catamounts (mountain lions). Based in Rutland, he has a wide range of administrative responsibilities covering some 20 species in Rutland and Bennington County. But it’s snakes that have built his renown, which is understandable if you’ve watched videos showing him handling four-and five-foot long venomous rattlers with aplomb.
Why did he focus on rattlers (one of the 11 native snakes in the state?) “Because they are endangered, and it’s so unique to have this species in Vermont,” he explains, noting they are at the far northern end of their range. There are none left in Maine, and only a small threatened pocket remains in New Hampshire. “I’m amazed that it really can survive in this pretty harsh environment.”
Blodgett is tall and gray-haired, handsomely square-jawed and fit. Spend time with him on one of his forays to track the snakes, and you find someone thoughtful about people’s deep-seated phobias about rattlesnakes.
“The form is weird to us. It doesn’t have arms or shoulders, it’s not furry; it doesn’t have hair so to us mammals; it’s ‘what is that thing!’” he suggests. “I can’t think of an animal that is held in more contempt.”
Which is why so few remain. Author Jon Furman, who published a lively well-researched history, “Timber Rattlesnakes in Vermont and New York” (University Press of New England), tells remarkable tales of rattlesnake bounty hunters who killed thousands in their lifetimes. Vermont ended bounties in 1971.
Furman argues that rattlesnakes are resolutely non-aggressive creatures, just wanting to be left alone. Blodgett agrees, saying media-fueled myths and misperceptions wrongly vilify them. “Their first defense is to do nothing. They stay motionless and they’re hoping against hope that if they stay motionless, you can’t see them.” And when they do rattle, it’s just their way of saying, “hey, I’m right here, can you see me?”
Both times he stepped on a snake, they didn’t bite and just crawled away.
Blodgett now is focusing his attention on a new snake fungal disease that has cropped up in 12 states and proved quite lethal in some. It has some similarities with the white-nose disease affecting bats, and he says experts are “behind the eight-ball” in research on it. In Vermont there has been some mortality, and he’s quite concerned about it, especially since it only has been found on rattlesnakes.
“They’ve been maligned and persecuted for hundreds of years. It’s just one more strike against it,” he says.
Andrew Nemethy is a longtime journalist, freelance writer and editor from Calais, Vt. Contact him at Andrewnemethy@gmail.com
