HOPKINTON -- Loren Valliere never thought of herself as a snake person. It's not that she disliked snakes, she just never thought she'd spend her days tracking and catching them.

Yet, here she is, boldly pushing through a nearly impenetrable tangle of shrubs as a red squirrel scolds her and a light drizzle falls, because she knows the black racer snake she searched for all morning is in there somewhere.

“Come on, little guy, where are you?” she murmers, ducking under a branch.

Valliere, a biological aide, has spent the last three summers tracking, catching, studying and releasing black racers as part of a research project for the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department's Nongame and Endangered Wildlife Program. The project started shortly after black racers, in 2008, were listed as a threatened species in the state and biologists were determined to learn more about the snake's habitat and needs in order to protect them.

Back then, Valliere was a UNH wildlife and conservation biology major who was hungry for field experience. “I was willing to take whatever Fish and Game wanted to give me. I said, 'You want to give me snakes? OK.”

Since then, Valliere has repeatedly tracked and captured the same 30 black racers involved in the study, and has developed a deep admiration of them. “It seems silly, but I do kind of get attached because they're just very cool.”

Black racers are common throughout much of the eastern U.S. but not in New Hampshire, which is at the northernmost edge of their range. Here, people are more likely to think a black racer is some sort of NASCAR term — and if so, they'd be onto one of the attributes of these snakes: They are fast. They streak away from people and such predators as birds and bigger snakes. They can even climb up into the branches of shrubs to escape. For food, black race eat frogs, toads, rodents and insects.

On this day, Valliere is in a multi-use area in Hopkinton where she tracking a male racer, 4½ feet long. She considers that “a smaller guy” because racers can get up to 5 feet long. Her most important pieces of equipment are a telemetry antenna and hand-held receiver. She sets the receiver to pick up signals from a tiny transmitter that has been surgically implanted by a veterinarian under the snake's skin.

As she walks through blueberry patches and white pine seedlings, she listens for a “beep” that will tell her she's within range. Even with the tracking gear, she's got to look carefully.

“The majority of racers will bolt when you get close, but this one guy tends to sit very still, covered by shrubs or grass, with just enough of him out so he can see you. Once I stepped right over him and didn't even see him,” she said.

A woman riding a bike with her husky running alongside stops to tell Valliere that she saw “Blacky” a while back, and is always on the lookout for anything that slithers so she can tell Valliere about it. Stopping to talk with passersby and landowners is a big part of Valliere's job, and it's one way she tries to spread the word that racers need protection.

“The biggest issues are how do we make people understand that they are harmless and useful in our environment? How are we going to make sure people aren't going to kill them?” Valliere asks.

Those are the big issues for any snake species, since many people fear them and don't know that of the 11 snake species in New Hampshire, only one has venom dangerous to humans. That one is the timber rattler, an endangered species that exists in just one tiny, protected site in the state.

Not everyone is as friendly toward snakes as the bike rider, however. Some people ask her why she's even doing a snake study. As a UNH wildlife student, she lived in a culture that valued all wildlife, but the real world is different. “You have to remember that not everyone thinks like (we) do,” she said.

“Beep!” The receiver tells Valliere she's within range of the racer. She keeps walking under the powerlines, following the beeps that now coming steadily. She determines which direction to turn by how strong the signal sounds as she moves the antenna to the left or right. When the beeps tell her to go left, down a slight ravine and straight into the impenetrable thicket that's taller than she is, she plunges right in.

“Good place for a snake,” she said.

The antenna keeps getting stuck in the hash of branches, so she ditches it but continues to push through the brush listening for beeps on the receiver. They get louder with each step. Underfoot, a system of small mammal holes makes her worry that the racer might be hiding underground today. But the signal seems stronger a few yards ahead.

“We're definitely close,” she said, disappearing into the thicket's depths once more. When she spots it coiled tightly under hazelnut shrubs, partly covered by tufts of grass. She grabs it and doesn't let go.

“He bit me but he mostly got my shirt,” she said, crouching down and holding the snake with both hands. She doesn't blame it. It's expected to get bitten when you bother snakes — and the black racer can be aggressive when cornered.

Valliere has lost count of the number of bites she has received. “They feel like cat scratches,” she noted, adding she usually douses the bites later with hand sanitizer.

She holds the snake with one hand behind the head and the other about two-thirds down its body. It seems remarkably calm, flicking out its tongue to smell the scent of its captor but otherwise remaining still. Its black skin feels silky and cool, and the muscles under its skin feel strong as steel.

“Isn't he beautiful?” Valliere asks. “That's why it makes me so sad when people want to kill them.”

Valliere checks it over, noting some scarring on the skin and taking pictures with her cell phone to show Brendan Clifford, a Fish and Game biologist and her supervisor on the project. Next she takes out a white pillowcase and gently lowers the racer inside it before tying off the top.

“Poor guy. Hang in there, buddy,” she said.

With the snake in the pillowcase, Valliere pulls out a reporting form, noting details about the surrounding habitat, air and ground temperature, and the snake's temperature and weight, as well.

When Valliere lifts the racer out of the case and sets it onto the grass, it remains still for a moment. Then it's a streak of black disappearing into the brush.

Valliere hikes back to her green Fish and Game truck in the rain. She's still had two more sites to visit that day. She's hopeful her research and her conversations with people who live near racer habitat will help the racers hold their ground in New Hampshire. She realizes that many people may never come to admire racers as she does, but she hopes that if they see one, at least they won't kill it.

“That's what I always stress to people – just leave it alone. I promise it will take off.”