Thread: Not what you want to find in your garden....

Originally Posted by cartm58

see this snake pulling a dead roo from water pond take somewhere in Kimberley region WA

Bugger, he'd blend in realy well with those rocks.

Out of the world top 25 venomous snakes we have 21 of them..
Your lucky Jeff "Western Tigers" can be very aggressive and deadly I don't know who took the picture but I'm surprised being cornered like that it did'nt make a run for the photographer..I hope you and your family are aware of current snake bite first aid..if not PM me.
I come across 3 or 4 every year on my job and protected or not my long handled shovel or Trowel takes the bitey bit away from the body They are deadly and I treat them with the respect they deserve.

Originally Posted by DirtyDawg

Out of the world top 25 venomous snakes we have 21 of them..
Your lucky Jeff "Western Tigers" can be very aggressive and deadly I don't know who took the picture but I'm surprised being cornered like that it did'nt make a run for the photographer..I hope you and your family are aware of current snake bite first aid..if not PM me.
I come across 3 or 4 every year on my job and protected or not my long handled shovel or Trowel takes the bitey bit away from the body They are deadly and I treat them with the respect they deserve.

we also have an average of 5 snake bite fatalities per year, most of them drunk yobbos or proffessional handlers, more people die from bee stings and a lot more from horses. The whole snake thing is overated, it is a hangover from our colonial and biblical past (the evil serpent), our fear of snakes is irrational and heriditary, if your terrified of them I bet your parents were to.I would be interested to know how many of us on the site actually have been bitten and hospitalised or even know someone that has, so why the paranoia??? They are a part of the landscape and every one you kill just creates a new ecological niche for the next one to slide into, a waste of time and you put yourself at unnecessary risk.I think we should all recognise them as part of living in this country and get over the ridiculous Irwinesque hype about how dangerous they are.My 2c worth.

Originally Posted by crump

if your terrified of them I bet your parents were to.

As noted earlier, my father used to catch them so I'm not terrified but I treat them with the respect they deserve. Certainly I wouldn't pick one up unless assured by an expert that the snake was harmless

The only snakes my children and I have handled have been pythons and other non-venomous species - they have such a lovely feel.

I remember the horror some people expressed when they saw pics of my kids (then 12 and 6 yo) with a python draped around their shoulders and arms - and even greater horror at the pic of my 6-yo near a sea snake on the beach.

Most snakes, like most sharks, are beautiful creatures - and I mean visually.

Ron

they can be very agressive mongrels and will chase you down ...

This "chase" thing is bit of a myth.

Plenty of people will tell you about old Farmer Brown who was chased from one side of a paddock to the other but it's not really possible.

Snakes are profoundly stupid and they DON'T know what humans are any more than they know calculus. They can be aggressive but they are NOT malicious. They see movement and react to it in one of two ways.

Small movement = food.

Big movement = threat.

I used to be snake phobic but that was resolved when I was lucky enough to meet a snake handler who handled browns, tigers, copperheads and red bellied blacks on the floor of a community hall IN BARE FEET.

He demonstrated something very interesting with one of the bigger nasties to prove that snakes are stupid. Holding it by the tail he gave it a few complete rotations, put it on the ground and froze. He had arched his foot so that his big toe and heel were the only bits touching the ground. The snake wasn't happy but it merely slithered along to try and hide under his foot.

His words of advice if you see ANY kind of snake? As soon as you see it, FREEZE. If you are not moving you don't register as anything more than a part of the landscape. If you have spooked the snake it will move on. It might take 2 minutes to happen, but it will happen. If not, just look to move anywhere the snake isn't.

He also said that one of the best ways to get bitten is to try to move or kill a snake.

Never actually had to kill a snake, but I used to be of the "terminate with extreme prejudice" mindset. Now I am happy to leave them be.

Originally Posted by MacMan

Never actually had to kill a snake, but I used to be of the "terminate with extreme prejudice" mindset. Now I am happy to leave them be.

I've never had to kill one but, in the past, I have. Now I'm of the same opinion as you, I leave them be.

However, we don't get them in our backyard.

Ron

as to the chase myth, top speedster in the Aussie snake community is the Black Whip Snake, around 7kmh flat out,if he chased you you would outrun him at fast walking pace.

Originally Posted by Chenz

I used to do a lot of trout fishing in the Fish River around Oberon in summer and believe me the Tigers are aggressive little buggers...

Apart from the reptile park, the most snakes I've seen in a morning was while fishing along the Fish River near Honeysuckle Falls. And nastie types too.

It was lousy with them. My mate went back to the camp site and didn't fish any more that weekend.

I've heard that ducks and geese keep snakes away from the house. Can anyone substantiate, or add to that.