The Timber Rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus) is a native species to all six New England states, having colonized from the south as far as the White Mountains and Lake Champlain during a warm period following the glacial retreat. In Massachusetts, the Timber Rattlesnake was formerly widespread and locally abundant in Essex, Middlesex, Worcester, Suffolk, Norfolk, Franklin, Hampshire, Hampden, and Berkshire Counties until the late-19th century.

Today the Timber Rattlesnake is one of the most endangered species in Massachusetts, having sustained the largest decline of any native reptile species in the past 150 years. Geographic place names, town histories, historical scientific reports, and museum specimens demonstrate a clear pattern of rapid, statewide range contraction from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s.  During the early colonial period, the Timber Rattlesnake evidently was widespread on many mountainous areas of bedrock exposure, absent only from Cape Cod and the Islands and the highest elevations of the Worcester and Berkshire Plateaus. Timber Rattlesnake populations across Massachusetts had mostly collapsed by the late-19th century as a combined result of widespread deforestation and eradication efforts, the latter supported by a bounty system. During the same time, the Timber Rattlesnake disappeared from Maine and Rhode Island and was reduced to a single site in New Hampshire and two sites in Vermont. At least two Massachusetts populations were extirpated in the past 50 years. There are only five remaining populations in Massachusetts, at least two of which are at very high risk of imminent extirpation caused by a combination a diverse array of factors and threats, which have proven extremely difficult to alleviate, and the conservation outlook for these populations is extremely dire. Timber Rattlesnakes have been a species of conservation concern for over 40 years and are protected in Massachusetts through the Massachusetts Endangered Species Act (MESA) since 1990.

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Author: mkmcst

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