Aussies seeing more close encounters of scaly kind
Australia
It’s a hot morning in Castle Hill, a northwestern suburb of Sydney, and Kate Spindlor is worried. A 1.2m-long snake has appeared from behind the steps to her home and she is terrified for her grandson, four.
Spindlor knows that the worst of Australia’s 140 snake species can kill in minutes. She has called Rob Armstrong, who has spent much of his career catching snakes. Within minutes he has reached behind the steps and seized a glossy, red-bellied black snake with his bare hands. While poisonous, its bite is rarely fatal; a fact that does little to reassure Spindlor, who is less than thrilled to hear that he intends to release it, albeit deep in the countryside. He elects not to mention that inside his vehicle are two eastern browns, the second-most venomous snake in the world. They were caught nearby and will also regain their freedom when Armstrong has time.
Right now the early summer snake season is at a peak and the call-outs come thick and fast as the reptiles go on the move in search of mates and food. At least 3000 Australians are bitten by snakes each year but thanks to public education and widespread stocks of anti-venom, fatalities are in the single figures.
As Australia’s climate warms, venomous snakes are increasingly seeking shelter inside homes, according to experts. ‘‘Encounters will go up with this extreme weather as snakes are trying to escape the heat that would otherwise kill them,’’ says Bryan Fry, a snake specialist at the University of Queensland.
Last week an eastern brown caused panic among Christmas shoppers when it entered a shopping mall in Canberra.
There is another reason why encounters with snakes are on the rise in Australia: urban sprawl. Snake habitat is being rapidly gobbled up as new suburbs push out the boundaries of Sydney’s billowing northwestern fringes. At Box Hill, 50km from the city’s centre, a developer is building 4000 new houses over what was farmlands and bush.
Called out to the new project, Armstrong spots a red-belly and quickly nabs it and carries it into the main sales office. A potential buyer – a Chinese woman – is aghast and quickly leaves. The estate agent is unimpressed: ‘‘I certainly didn’t think you’d be holding that,’’ she says.
It’s a sentiment that bothers Armstrong.
Unhappy in his early career in
‘‘People have begged me to kill snakes,’’ he says. ‘‘But why would I want to kill my favourite animal because somebody’s scared of it? I’m actually protecting them.’’ Rob Armstrong, snake catcher