Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, May 27, 1995                   TAG: 9505300040
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                                 LENGTH: Medium

MAYBE IT WAS JUST ALL THAT RATTLING

The snake has been on the state's endangered species list since 1992. Farmers around the city's Northwest River Park began to complain about the study, fearing it would lead to land-use regulations on their property.

The two researchers doing the study, Alan and Barbara Savitzky, and the state Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, which funded the study, were unable to convince farmers that such fears were unfounded.

The state has no power to regulate the use of land to protect endangered species; only the federal government does. It is unlikely that the canebrake rattler would ever make the federal endangered list because its numbers flourish in other Southeastern states.

The department wanted to know why the snake's numbers were dwindling in Virginia.

``We are simply biologists who were trying to answer a biological question,'' Alan Savitzky said. ``We just simply could not comprehend what it was about the study that was harming anyone.''

Del. Randy Forbes, R-Chesapeake, an outspoken opponent of the study, said he was happy the study was over because of a possible liability problem if one of the snakes bit someone.

Park officials said they knew of only one case of a canebrake biting a visitor, and that was before the study.

The Savitzkys had hoped to continue following the snakes, using tiny radio transmitters surgically placed in the reptiles.

City and state officials ordered the project stopped last September. The Savitzkys were allowed to continue their study until this month so they could wait until the snakes were ready to have the transmitters removed.