Women changing people’s minds about snakes

A mother-daughter team from Pretoria are out to prove an old gender stereotype wrong – that all women are afraid of insects and reptiles.

Heidi Pfeifer and Charlene Gebhardt are part of a group of women who work with snake specialist Arno Naude.

Their job is catching and safeguarding big reptiles found in unwanted places.

Many people might squirm at the idea of holding a spider in the palm of their hands or feeling the slithery layers of a snake’s skin against their necks. But these women do not squirm.

“I enjoy working with reptiles as they are so misunderstood and feared,” Pfeifer told Rekord.

“The most rewarding feeling is when you can convert someone from fearing them to admiring and respecting them.

“When people realise reptiles, especially venomous snakes, actually do not pose such a great danger and are as scared of us as we are of them, then we have won one person over. All it takes is one person to change the world for a snake,” she said.

Pfeifer said that as a young girl, she never had any intention of working in this industry.

“When I was about 17, my father found a snake in the garden. It was a Cape wolf snake which was harmless.

“At that stage, we did not know it was illegal to keep indigenous reptiles in Gauteng. We did as much research as we could – unfortunately, this was before Google,” she said.

“We then purchased a small pair of Burmese pythons and not long after that traded up for a pair of three-metre long Burmese pythons.

“I was hooked. This is where my interest peaked. We started keeping various snakes as well as geckos and I got interested in venomous snakes as well.”

Pfeifer attended an identification and bite treatment course as well as a venomous snake handling course presented by Naude and Gustav Collins in 2002.

“The most rewarding part of this work is releasing an animal back into a safe area,” she said.

Pfeifer explained that being a woman in the industry can be quite challenging.

“Many people question your capabilities and skills,” she said.

“But the funniest situations are always when there is a group of men. They don’t expect a woman to arrive, and when it is an ‘easy’ catch, they mostly comment, ‘I could have done that’.

“I’ve also been called out for toy snakes, toads and even painted stones,” she said.

Gebhardt also developed a love for rescuing reptiles.

“We grew up with snakes. Arno and my mum used to do snake talks at all my birthday parties and I did a lot of reptile-related talks at school.”

She said being a reptile lover is a great conversation starter.

“I love educating others about reptiles, especially people who are afraid of them.”