PITTSFIELD (FOX 25 / MyFoxBoston.com) A Berkshire County woman had an unexpected encounter with a poisonous snake when she went out to her yard to garden last Thursday.
Elizabeth Hayes McGraw tells FOX 25 she was walking across her patio in Pittsfield when she noticed a very large rattlesnake up on her deck moving toward her house. McGraw says she reacted by screaming, grabbing her yellow Labrador retriever, and going inside. She says she grabbed the dog out of fear that it would see the poisonous snake and immediately run over to it.
After making several calls to have the four-foot long rattlesnake picked up, McGraw and her daughter, Andie, sat inside watching the snake coil up and sit in the sun. A crew came 45 minutes later to pick it up.
McGraw says she has seen rattlesnakes nearly one mile away from her home, but this was the first time she has encountered one on her property.
Andie the snake, named after McGraw's daughter, was equipped with a radio collar so that its habits could be tracked while in the wild. Animal experts tell McGraw that rattlesnakes are endangered in Massachusetts and few survive encounters with humans who often panic and kill the snakes before they call anyone to pick them up.
