Don’t tread on me

By DAVID HULSE
Posted 7/17/19

NARROWSBURG, NY — If you want to guarantee an attentive meeting audience, free a timber rattlesnake or copperhead on the floor of your meeting space.

It sure works for Narrowsburg resident …

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Don’t tread on me

Posted

NARROWSBURG, NY — If you want to guarantee an attentive meeting audience, free a timber rattlesnake or copperhead on the floor of your meeting space.

It sure works for Narrowsburg resident and long-time snake handler Randy Stechert, who presented his “Habits and Habitats of Venomous Snakes” program at the July 11 Upper Delaware Council (UDC) meeting.

Stechert recalled anecdotes and answered questions while his charges (only one at a time) slithered around, largely unhindered, on the newly re-tiled floor of the UDC meeting space. A rapt audience—some of whom who had moved back a row in their seating—took in his hour-long program.

Stechert, who has been a snake guy since the 1960s, said he’s not a collector; he keeps only his two vipers in order to give public programs to try and educate the public.

While he recalled having been bitten four times over the years, he said two of those bites were harmless “dry” bites, while the other two required some treatment. On the whole, he said our local vipers are not aggressive and, in the case of copperheads, are rarely lethal.

He said the last death he’d found related to a copperhead bite was a young man in Missouri, but he was said to have died from anaphylactic shock rather than snake venom. The last New York death from a timber rattlesnake’s bite was in 1929. The victim was an experienced zoologist collecting specimens for study.
Stechert said he’s found both copperheads and timber rattlesnakes to the south, but Narrowsburg is the northern demarcation line and their range, and to his knowledge it ends there.

snakes, Upper Delaware Council,

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