Saturday, November 15, 2008

E-mailed snake photos apparently from Montana, not Tomé Hill

Someone apparently wants to needlessly scare people going up Tomé Hill.

A series of photographs of a huge den of rattlesnakes is being circulated via e-mail as allegedly being on Tomé Hill, but a Google search shows identical pictures on a Web site of the Friends of Little Big Horn as having been taken in the National Monument in Montana.

"I got on Google ... and did a search on 'den of rattlesnakes' and went to the images and, as I was going through it, I found one that looked just like it. I clicked on that image and it sent me to a Web site that showed (the same photos)," said Julian Varraza, geographic information system analyst for the Valley Improvement Association.

Jacqueline Guilbault, director of special projects for the VIA, which owns Tomé Hill and has established a park there, said she's been up the hill many times and has never seen a single rattlesnake there.

"I don't know why someone would do this," she said. "It's not funny. It (Tomé Hill) is generally thought of as a very spiritual place. I can't imagine why someone would try to keep people away from Tomé Hill. It's creating an unfounded concern."

Tomé Hill is the site of a large Good Friday religious pilgrimage to the summit, which is crowned with three crosses.

The photos had been sent to the News-Bulletin by several different concerned e-mailers who asked whether they were real. When compared, the Montana photos show the same trees, vegetation and snakes in the same positions as those on the e-mail.

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