’Myths endanger By RICHARD HEIDORN JR. Collegian Staff Writer “Thwap! ” Biology professor William * Dunson holds a mouse by its tail then slaps it down onto the counter, braking its spine like a bar of Turkish taffy. He drop® the still twitching rodent into an aquarium where a medium-sized snake, just arrived from India, waits. Feeding concluded, Dunson leads the Fv way from the lab to his office where he , will try to explain why he and a graduate , student have undertaken an unlikely task preserving from extinction What is thought to be one of the most ornery , creatures in the' United States the timber rattlesnake.- Conservation of wild animals has been an increasingly popular cause, but when the animal to be saved is a potentially harmful one, the crusade is bound to be 1 an uphill fight. * , “Working with rattlesnakes is not like* working with other animals,” graduate student John Galligan admits. “People g. are not neutral about rattlesnakes.” ** Slight understatement, that. , Few creatures have inspired as much fear and loathing in American popular culture as the rattlesnake. According to Dunson, however, cowboy movies that have depicted the rattler as a villain prone to unprovoked attacks on unwary J!> persons are wrong. ’‘More people are killed by bees every yfear,” he says. “There hasn’t been a death from a rattlesnake bite in Penn sylvania in years. ”- In fact, says Dunson, humans are more a threat' to rattlesnakes than the other way around. The snakes, which jffonce populated much of the mountain woodlands of the eastern seaboard, have been wiped out in most of these areas and in Pennsylvania and parts of New York find their last refuge before ex tinction. . In Pennsylvania, the Society for the Study, of Amphibians and Reptiles has W placed the timber rattlesnake on its list of endangered species and is recom mending state protection of the snake. For their part, Dunson and Galligan have undertaken what they say is the first detailed study of the timber rat tlesnake ever made. The study, they ft. hope, will overcome the misconceptions i they see as one of the biggest obstacles I ivi n g Researchers interested in both science and arts to the protection they seek for the snakes. Legend has it, for example,' that die female rattlesnake bears as many as 90 snakes in a litter and that she has two litters every year. Dunson says research conducted thus far indicates the rattlesnake actually has only six to eight young once every two years. Of these young, not all will survive the six to seven years to maturity. “If you kill the adults, you exterminate the entire population,” Dunson says. Because of the way stories of rat tlesnake encounters are passed around, Dunson said, people think there are more rattlesnakes than there really are. Hunters familiar with the snakes say they know of only two-or three dens still used by the snakes while there used to be dozens. . Dunson says he hopes his study will make people aware of-the extinction danger rattlesnakes face. That, how ever, doesn’t make the rattlesnake any more amiable to most people. The question people are likely to ask is: why bother-with the rattlesnake, anyway?. The timber rattlesnake is of no scientific value, Dunson and Galligan agree. The few snakes used in medicine to produce anti-venom are not the Pennsylvania variety but the larger sort found in western states. ' “One of the hardest questions I get asked is ‘what good are they?’ ” Galli gan says. “Well, what good is the whoop ing crane? Animals don’t have to be good for anything.” It is understandable that hikers and campers .should believe that “to kill a snake was a service,” Galligan says. “But the idea that something should exist only if it is useful to us is pretty immature.” “You can’t have a wilderness without the natural complement of animals that are there,” Dunson agrees. But the biggest threat to the snakes has come not from the camper or hiker who can simply avoid the snake, but from organized snake hunts that are popular fund raisers throughout Penn sylvania, Dunson says. The money raised from the hunts goes to causes such as local fire departments and church organizations, but Dunson rattlers ‘ says there are better ways to raise that money.. The largest hunt, for example, raised $6,500 but most of that was not from the hunt itself, but from food and carnival concessions, Dunson says. “They glorify idiocy,” Dunson says of the hunters. Many prizes and trophies -among which the most cherished sign of accomplishment is the “Sunken Fang Award”, are given to hunters who have been bitten. Two such awards were presented at a hunt - Galligan attended recently in Morris, Pa. Most of the few bites reported every year, Galligan says, result from inexperienced persons handling the snakes at the hunts. ’ Snakes caught at the hunt are usuaUy released, but not always where they were caught. Moving the snakes may be as harmful as killing the snakes outright, Dunson says, because it is not known whether they are able to find a new den and re-establish in unfamiliar surroundings. Dunson said he has heard stories of hunters destroying the dens with gasoline or dynamite, a- custom that persists despite the outlawing of the practice. Dunson expects the influence of what he calls “the hunter mystique” to oppose his proposal to ban the killing or sale of the snakes. A similar proposal, Dunson says, was rejected by the Pennsylvania Fishing Commission last year after pressure by hunting groups. Because the Commission receives all its funds from fishing, snake hunting and other license fees, Dunson says, the Commission has little interest in saving the rattlesnake. “They don’t take the long-range view,” he says. “The average fisherman doesn’t care about rattlesnakes.” Many hunters who have learned of the extinction problem have given up rat tlesnake hunting, however. Dunson says he is confident that he will be able to convince the Commission to adopt his proposal. Eventually, there will be a “balance of those who want to exploit the resources and those who want to save them,” he predicts. “Emotions are the biggest obstacle.” The timber rattlesnake (above) faces extinction, according to Penn State biologists, if precautions are not taken now. John Galligan (12th-biology) at right, demonstrates how the research ers properly lift the snakes from their aquarium-like homes. A weekly look at life in the University community Friday, July 23,1976 —5 By LAURA SHEMICK Collegian Wire Editor Science labs probably seem dull and gloomy to most people, but the University’s Materials Research Lab across University Drive from the Ice Pavilion is far from uninteresting. In addition to its many applied science projects, the lab fosters interest in the humanities by exhibiting sculpture, photography and paintings and by sponsoring events such as “Two-Culture Dialogues,’’ informal discussions be tween scientists and artistically-inclined people. The lab, while encouraging art and science to meet, spends a lot of time on research, too. It works on projects ranging from the development' of high density, long-lasting concrete to the development of artifical blood vessels. The lab is partially funded by state and federal agencies and must specify certain “thrust” areas (projects of s special interest) in order to qualify for s the funding. The lab’s current special interests include luminescent lighting, ferro-electric materials, highway materials such as concrete, biomedical materials and radioactive, waste disposal. The lab has a staff of more than 40 professors and other teachers from the On the left is “Gemini,” by Barbara Hopworth, a glass sculp- in past years. Above is “The Dawn,” by Feliciano Bejar, also ture featured in the Materials Research Lab’s art room. It is featured in the exhibit. It consists of four glass disks with a replica of a prize given to an outstanding material scientist many minor lenses set within them. University to work on projects. According to Bruce Knox, vice-president for research at the lab, about 22 work mostly at the lab, and 25 work more at their own offices on campus. The staff, members come from many fields within the general field of material science, including engineering, earth and mineral sciences, chemistry and physics. Graduate assistants from these colleges also work in the lab. According to Knox, some colleges actively recruit assistants for the lab but others tend to ignore it. The lab does applied science research of non-organic, non-metallic substances, according to Knox, and is mostly paid for through contracts with the state and federal governments. Private industry makes a few contracts with the lab. The University partially subsidizes the lab by paying the salaries of the employes, Knox said. The lab uses very complicated and usually expensive tools to aid its work, including electron microscopes, microprobes, x-ray machines (for x-ray crystography), numerous furnaces and high-pressure chambers, and crystal growing devices capable of growing small rubies. “A couple of. years ago,” Knox reminisced, “the grad students here were working away, making rubies to give to their girlfriends for Christmas.” Knox emphasizes that the lab, while connected with the University, does a great deal of work for many different interest groups. “Sometimes we do research for groups we ordinarily don’t work for, if the subject is interesting, ”he said, citing an analysis of the tools used by Hopewell Indians in Ohio. The lab ordinarily leaves common analysis work to service labs, “but this was interesting to us,” Knox said. The lab also works in advancing science education and is currently coordinating a national effort to com , pletely catalogue material science books, articles and films for use in college mini-courses. One of the more important projects the lab is working on right now is biomedical materials. “We’re interested in making bone 'replacements,” Knox said. “Coral is similar to bone in structure we use it as a mold to cast bone-like structures for use in the human body.” The lab is also working on artificial blood vessels for use in replacing damaged arteries, besides developing pseudo-skin for use with burn victims and new artificial hearts for people with heart problems. Photo by Richard Blum Photo by Richard Blum
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