SNAKES ALIVE!
If reptiles had a superhero, it would be nick evans. his daring snake removals and education work have earned him wide acclaim, even outside of his kwazulu-natal stomping ground. we recently chatted to nick to find out just what makes someone pick up a black mamba.
For many people, the idea of just being in the vicinity of a snake, frog or perhaps any reptile or amphibian whatsoever is like a personal vision of hell. But these important members of our natural heritage have received an unfairly bad rap over the years, and people like Nick Evans are here to change that. Not, perhaps, to make you want to cuddle a toad or wrap a python around your body, but cer tainly to help our local reptiles and amphibians earn South Africa’s respect and protection.
Nick himself has earned a large following thanks to his daring snake removals, documented in a book he’s written about his experiences. If you have a mamba in your house and live in the greater Durban area, Nick is the man to call. But though the removals get the attention, the bulk of Nick’s work is education.Through his organisation, KwaZulu-Natal Amphibian & Reptile Conservation, he conducts snake awareness and identification talks at schools, companies, events and charities, and undertakes guided frogging evenings. Education, he believes, is the key aspect of his work.
Like most people with a passion, it started young for Nick.“I have loved wildlife ever since I can remember, and reptiles too, starting with dinosaurs. But it then moved to snakes, a reptile I could actually see in the flesh. One day, an Australian bloke dressed in khaki popped up on the TV screen wrangling snakes, crocodiles and lizards. His name was Steve Irwin, famously known as The Crocodile Hunter, and he had me captivated! I was hooked, and I wanted to be just like him.That’s when I started catching and studying snakes and other reptiles,” Nick recalls.
“When Steve Irwin died, I was in primary school, and I was shattered. I thought, ‘I’m going to dedicate my life to fighting for Steve’s cause’ – the conservation of the less popular and misunderstood animals. And so, ever since then, I’ve been on a mission!”
After a stint working at Dangerous Creatures at uShaka Marine World in Durban, Nick founded KwaZulu-Natal Amphibian & Reptile Conservation in 2015. It didn’t take long for his snake-removal service to build momentum, and he now gets 10 to 20 calls a day in summer, though will usually only go out on one to four of those. “If the snake is harmless – confirmed with a photo
– I encourage people to leave them in the garden, as they won’t bother anyone, and they control rat, frog or lizard numbers. If it’s a venomous species, I’ll go and remove it,” he explains.
As a committed conservationist,
Nick releases all of the snakes that he captures.“This horrifies some people, but hey, snakes have a right to live too! Plus, we need them if we want to live in a healthy environment, as they are a key link in the food chain, serving as predators and as prey. I release them where I believe they won’t encounter humans again.”
Nick’s removals go beyond snakes. He’s removed a large Nile monitor lizard from a toilet and even a nearly 3 m long crocodile! But one of his most interesting removals was a python rescue. “I was called out to remove a large mother python on eggs – something I had always wanted to see. Snakes generally lay their eggs and leave them, offering them no protection whatsoever. But pythons are different.They guard their eggs with their lives, and, aside from that, they also incubate them.
This big python had laid her eggs in a gap next to a house, and with construction all around it, we decided moving her would be best for her and her babies,” Nick says.
“We had to lift the coils of her body up, while extracting the eggs from below her. It was extremely difficult, but we eventually managed.
Then we extracted her. She measured out at
4 m long – my longest python to date. After releasing her, we incubated the eggs. I know it seems sad, but the process had to be done.
Thankfully, all of the eggs hatched – more than
40 – and all the babies were released. But I won’t say where!”
Nick’s snake-removal work doesn’t really pay the bills, as his call-outs are effectively done on a donation basis.“It’s certainly not a ‘business’ to go into if you’re in it for the money,” Nick says. So his work is funded mostly by his snake awareness talks, and by companies or government organisations. His awareness talks focus on the basics, including why people are scared of snakes, and why we don’t need to be. His talks usually include demonstrations with live and local species.
You may not love – or even like – snakes, frogs, lizards, or anything that’s not your golden retriever. And that’s okay. We nonetheless all have a part to play in their conservation – even relatively passively – and there’s a lot one can do. “Simply encouraging those around you not to kill snakes has a major impact,” Nick says.
“Try to learn more about snakes and understand them. If you can do that, share your knowledge. We need as much education as possible to conserve what wildlife we have left.A great way to make a small difference to frog conservation is by building a pond in your garden. It is extremely rewarding too, as a pond attracts a whole lot of wildlife.”