RATTLER KILLS LIFELONG SNAKE WHISPERER, 80!
A SPRY 80-year-old rattlesnake expert who spent his life coaxing reclusive timber rattlers from their hidey-holes to study them died when one of the varmints took a hunk out of him with a vicious, venomous bite!
The vexed viper struck William H. “Marty” Martin on the renowned snake whisperer’s property in Harpers Ferry, W.Va.
The longfanged, forkedtongued timber rattlesnake is among the most deadly species of snake in the U.S., but in general they try to avoid humans and “save their venom for their prey,” according to Joe Villari, manager of the Bull Run
Mountains Natural Area Preserve, who often accompanied Marty on his pet project of trying to locate the toxic serpents in an effort to count and study them.
“He was in his 80s and he was hard to keep up with,” says Villari of the snake enthusiast, whose obsession began in childhood and who was named “the ambassador of rattlesnakes” in an online profile.