Durban — A week after rescuing a black mamba hiding between a roof and the wall, Durban snake catcher Nick Evans was called to an injured black mamba on a busy road near Glenmore.
Evans said that Thursday was a sad start to the day but there was a positive to take out of it.
He said that he received a call earlier for an injured black mamba on a busy road near Glenmore. The snake’s chances of crossing the road successfully were extremely low and, as expected, it was hit by a car.
“As I approached, the caller was busy frantically waving cars away from the snake, getting them to swerve around it. I drove 20m past a taxi stop. I got out of my car and saw that the man was still waving cars around the snake,” Evans recalled.
“Unfortunately, I could see the snake was taking its last breaths. No visible injuries as often is the case with these large snakes and cars. But there was blood in the mouth.”
According to Evans, the caller said, “I love snakes”.
Evans said it was a pity the caller’s efforts were in vain when it came to the snake’s life.
“However, his care and effort gave me hope. Seeing someone with an attitude like his, especially going out of his way, probably being late for work, to try and save an animal, was so good to see,” Evans said.
“I see people do horrible things to all sorts of animals, which can really crush one’s spirit. So this was something I needed.”
Evans added that the snake’s body will be used for an interesting research project they were working on to help better understand and conserve black mambas.
A week prior, in Glenmore, Evans was leaving a call-out after the black mamba he was there for disappeared in a section of roofing and the snake poked its head out.
A lady had called him about a black mamba in her house and her son kept watch for the snake.
The dogs had also noticed the snake, but the mamba was in an elevated position. The caller’s son also acted quickly and locked the dogs away. He kept a close eye on the snake until Evans arrived.
“When I did arrive, the caller’s son had just lost visual of it. It had gone on to a section of roofing and just seemed to have vanished, as snakes often do, even the big ones, like mambas. A frustrating habit for someone like me!
“I looked around and noticed that if it moved across the roof sheeting it would have got access to a ceiling, to which there was no access. I couldn’t rip the sheeting off either. It seemed odd, though, that the caller’s son didn’t see it go there,” Evans explained.
“As I was leaving, the homeowner’s son looked once more where he last saw it and spotted it! The face was poking out, where the body was, I still don’t know,” Evans said.
He said that getting it out of wherever it was hiding in was tricky. It was an awkward position to access. It didn’t seem to be under a section of sheeting. It was not in the gutter. There was a steel beam, which a snake could hide in, but it was not in there. It must have found a gap in the wall that was plastered over or gone into one of those hollow bricks.
“As I say, we still don’t know for sure.
“I couldn’t just grab its face with the tongs. I’d hurt it, aggravate it, and I wouldn’t be able to do much from there. I jiggled the tongs a bit, gently coaxing it to stick a few centimetres more of its neck out. Eventually, after a while, that worked, and I grabbed behind the head with the tongs. I pulled the head towards me, as gently as possible, and secured the head in my hands,” said Evans, describing the removal.
Daily News