By Nick Bikeman
Right now, across the western suburbs, you are never more than a couple of hundred meters away from a highly venomous snake. You just don’t know it.
On the back of a wet, warm spring, snake numbers are climbing. Tiger Snakes, Eastern Browns, together with Lowland Copperheads, are slithering across lawns, crawling through homes, secretly penetrating our lives, while professional snake catchers struggle to keep up with demand from increasingly anxious residents.
Nearly all people are fearful of snakes, perhaps due to a primal evolutionary tendency to avoid the potentially lethal serpents. Combine that with a widespread negative cultural tradition linked to snakes, and it’s easy to see why most individuals react in terror when confronted with a snake.
For those of us who are charmed by the mesmerising, hypnotic allure of snakes, this is our favourite time of the year. Passionate reptile lovers are actively seeking out high-risk encounters with these fascinating but deadly creatures, which are always best observed from a safe distance.
It’s quite easy to encounter a slippery snake. Like us, they enjoy basking in the sun on hot summer days, around local parklands, beside creeks and rivers, or along bicycle trails.
Tiger Snakes are easily identified by their yellow and black banded body pattern, belligerent nature, and forked tongue. Extremely venomous, a bite from a Tiger Snake will release a venom full of neurotoxins into the bloodstream, which can result in paralysis and death. Eastern Brown Snakes, which share a similar habitat to that of Tiger Snakes, are more venomous, rated the second most dangerous snake in the world. Fast, aggressive, and quick to strike, Eastern Browns are responsible for most snakebite deaths in Victoria.
Lowland Copperheads are smooth-scaled, burgundy-coloured snakes that are usually found closer to water in cooler habitats. Though venomous, Copperheads are generally less hostile than Brown or Tiger Snakes.
The good news about being bitten by a harmful snake these days is that the outcome is rarely life-threatening. Snakebite antivenom is readily available at major hospitals and routinely helps save people’s lives. An increase in education and awareness around snakebite best practice has also improved survivability. Many people now carry a ‘Snake bite bandage’ in their first aid kit. Old-fashioned treatments such as cutting the area around a snake bite, then sucking out the venom, are dangerous and ineffective.
Veterinarians also administer snakebite antivenom to pets, mostly dogs and cats, that are displaying symptoms of snakebite. Antivenom can be effective in some cases if treated promptly; however, many pets succumb to the snake’s venom. Some dog owners have found ‘Snake avoidance training’ to be successful in conditioning their pets to avoid snakes. Surprisingly, cats are almost twice as likely to survive a venomous bite as dogs, due to their blood being slower to clot. Maybe cats really do have nine lives.
When it comes to snakes, I have an insatiable appetite; my ancient reptilian brain responds almost telepathically to their commanding physical presence, sleek design, and dominant unblinking eyes. Snakes also possess a spellbinding, flowing corkscrew movement that hints at a deeper, mysterious, primordial awareness. Our animal ancestors don’t use thought, reason, or emotions but function on raw, cold-blooded instinct alone.
The very presence of snakes in the landscape provides the ideal opportunity to reimagine our personal relationship with the natural world. As snakes in their thousands slink out beyond the basalt plains to squirm over our carefully manicured nature strips, they remind us that nature isn’t somewhere we visit, it’s where we live.
