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“We never know what adventure awaits us when the phone rings on any given day,” Montclair animal control officer Michele Shiber said in a statement. “Last Tuesday was rather special because we got a call for a copperhead snake which is a rarity for the Montclair area.”
No one was hurt by the snake, but on June 10, another copperhead bit a man’s finger in nearby Paterson. That man was expected to be OK after receiving a vaccine to counteract the venom.
The snake was spotted in Montclair near the Starbucks on Valley Road by a person who notified animal control. The person was asked to send a photograph so the snake could be easily identified.
When animal control officers realized it was a northern copperhead, they rushed to the scene to keep people back and to seize the animal before it slithered away. The officers manages to catch it with a net and snake tongs.
Bystanders kept close enough to the snake to keep it in view while animal control responded, but not close enough for the animal to harm them, Shiber said. That was exactly what they should have done, she added.
Animal control in Montclair contacted the state Division of Fish and Wildlife, which will give the snake to an educational organization, Shiber said.
The snake can’t be returned to the wild because of the possibility it may spread disease to another area. Also, if the snake had been raised as a pet, it would not be able to survive on its own. (A special state permit is required to keep a copperhead in captivity.)
Though rarely seen, copperheads can be found in New Jersey, especially near the New York border in the northernmost section of the state and in parts of Hunterdon, Mercer, and Somerset counties, as well as in the Palisades in Bergen County.
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