THE PUBLIC IS INVITED AND ENCOURAGED TO ATTEND: MAY 10, 2016 (Tuesday) @ 11:00 a.m. Athol Town Hall ATHOL — The next in this year’s string of hearings on the rattlesnake island plan will be run by politicians rather than the plan’s backers. A legislative oversight hearing on the plan to establish a home for endangered rattlesnakes in the Quabbin Reservoir is set for May 10 in the Athol Town Hall. State Sen. Anne Gobi, D-Spencer, said the purpose is to hear from and directly question the proposal by the Division of Fisheries and Wildlife in a hearing not controlled by that body. The plan has proved contentious. Some residents fear snakebites, or that the presence of an endangered species will further bite into recreational access to the reservoir. Others support the plan on environmental grounds. The hearing begins at 11 a.m. in the Town Hall/Memorial Building and is open to the public — but not to public testimony. “The reason for that is to stay focused on what DFW presents and to directly question that. I am aware of the many groups and individuals who are either for or against the proposal and they can submit information, etc., to my office,” Gobi wrote. “I have received numerous emails and am compiling questions that will be asked of DFW.” Gobi chairs the Joint Committee on Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture. Her email address is anne.gobi@masenate.gov. The plan under review involves stocking a large island in the Quabbin Reservoir with the venomous snakes, which are native to the state but are endangered. The Division of Fisheries and Wildlife’s Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program is behind the effort. The state has already begun gathering endangered timber rattlesnakes from different Massachusetts populations to breed, the young to be fostered and introduced to Mount Zion at a rate of one to 10 per year for a decade, beginning in 2017 at the earliest, according to the DFW. Zion is a large island in the Quabbin Reservoir attached to the mainland by a baffle dam at the opposite end of the island from the proposed hibernation home-base for the reptiles. DFW officials, most prominently assistant director Tom French, hold that the snakes are loath to travel far from their home dens, will have ample food on Zion and have difficulty establishing new dens for winter hibernation.