When Aussies find snakes in their home or place of business, they can call a snake catcher, who comes out to retrieve the reptile. A recent call from
When Aussies find snakes in their home or place of business, they can call a snake catcher, who comes out to retrieve the reptile. A recent call from a business in Newcastle ended up with the snake catcher being utterly amazed at the animal he had to capture. A venomous red-bellied black snake (Pseudechis porphyriacus), was hiding behind an air conditioning unit, but it wasn’t just an ordinary red-bellied black snake, it was a fat, heavy snake that was two meters in length. The snake catcher, Geoff Delooze, a subcontractor for Newcastle and Hunter Animal Control did a double take when he pulled it out with snake tongs and estimated the snake to be about 20 years old.
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“He can eat an eastern brown snake (the deadliest of them all) his own size. . . and that’s why I’m so against them being slaughtered,” Delooze told Business Insider Australia. “I’m just glad he hasn’t had harm come to him. They’re like any other pet or animal. . . it has its place.”
Delooze told the paper that 90 percent of Australians kill snakes when they happen upon them, even though it is illegal to do so. He said this was one lucky snake that for the most part learned to stay away from humans. Delooze released the snake in some bushland outside the city limits.
The red-bellied black snake is native to eastern Australia and feeds on other snakes, including the deadly eastern brown snake. It is common in urban areas around the east coast of Australia and can be found in urban forests, woodlands, plains and bushlands. In addition to other snakes and reptiles, it feeds on frogs and small mammals. It also feeds on its own species.
John B. Virata keeps a ball python, two corn snakes, a king snake, and two leopard geckos. His first snake, a California kingsnake, was purchased at the Pet Place in Westminster, CA for $5.
