LAND SNAKES ALIVE!
A feisty snake-wrangling couple remove often deadly reptiles from suburban KZN homes in this reality TV show. By
Simon Keys is as intimate with snakes as Medusa, but his slinky reptiles are twisted around his neck, not his smooth head. On any given day the presenter of the hit show Snakes in the City could have a live venomous snake wrapped about him along with his snake tattoos, permanent companions which wind up to his jaw from elaborate body art.
At least his wife and co-presenter, herpetologist Siouxsie Gillet, shares his passion for snakes and that’s how they got entangled. The sum of their energy and bravery, plus danger, contribute to the popularity of Snakes in the City.
Captures are authentic on this Nat Geo Wild reality show, filmed around Durban, whose fifth season started on Monday.
The snake wranglers are removing city snakes, not their country cousins, and this gives the show its edge. These are snakes living in people’s couches, or roofs, or other places alarming to their human hosts.
In slither Keys and Gillet to the rescue. They come prepared with goggles — to stop the venom of spitting cobras — protective gloves and other kit to capture the deadly snakes, at risk to their own lives.
In gruesome detail, graphics demonstrate what would happen to their bodies if they got bitten and how they would be wounded and die, usually painfully. This made the most lasting impression on my son of 12.
Keys, who has been bitten, said: “We are not really ‘scared’ as such anymore, as we both have many years’ experience in snake catching. However, we do have massive respect for these potentially deadly animals and are always on high alert.
“We love all animals — in particular animals that are often hard to love through misconceptions or fears.”
In the first episode, Hot and Bothered,
Keys must get a massive black mamba out of a roof. This demands that he poke his head into a cramped, hot space with SA’s deadliest snake, after he has bashed out chunks of the ceiling to get access to it.
Gillet plays a pivotal role at ground level to help get the black mamba safely into a sack where it is secured for release into the wild. They choose a forest with a river, far from people, to free it.
In another scene, Keys must confront his fear of heights to capture a boomslang up a tree. Complicating this rescue is an enthusiastic bystander who lacks the skills of the snake handlers, boisterous school kids and the snake’s speed as it shifts through the branches. After some false starts, Keys gets a grip on the camouflaged snake.
In a record, even for them, they remove four different snakes from one place, after returning to the house and garden three times following the first call, to remove mating whip snakes.
Earth Touch, the production company behind Snakes in the
City, exposes viewers to the risks both snakes and people face as the reptiles lose their habitat to urbanisation, in an attempt to educate fans as well as thrill them.
Keys got the idea of filming captures when he ran a snake-removal company in Durban, when he could remove more than 100 snakes a month in summer.
But they don’t evict snakes at their own homes in the coastal town of Umdloti in KwaZulu-Natal and Dunstable in the UK. Instead critters get a comfy pad to curl up. Hordes of venomous snakes, spiders, meerkats and even a crocodile have been embraced into their care.
Originally from the UK, like Keys, Siouxsie says: “We love South Africa, and Durban is our second home. We have found it very easy to film here, and really enjoy the people, the climate and — of course, the snakes!”
We have massive respect for these potentially deadly animals