Last week I went to the Khami reptile park for my advanced snake handling course and man was I nervous! Don’t get me wrong I don’t have a problem with snakes, actually I wrapped a boa constrictor around my neck for a class presentation on facing your fear in college, so this was a piece of cake , or so I thought. The only thing that made me nervous was thinking of handling the 5 most venomous snakes here in Africa. Surprisingly I was one of the only people on the course that did the snake handling, but after spending a day there I see why. It is a big risk! But hey, when are you ever going to be able to say I pulled a 4 meter black mamba out of a tree?
Gaboon Viper, not to easy to handle
When we arrived at the park we were greeted by our instructor and went over safety and rules followed by a practice round with a large piece of rope which was suppose to be a snake. The way this course went was we would get called out on the radio to come and collect the snake from someone’s house or garden and when we arrived on the scene where the trainers had strategically hidden the snakes we had to find it (hoping we weren’t going to step on it) and capture it. The first snake was one of the slowest snakes in Africa called the Puff Adder, but as slow as it moved it is the fastest striking snake and is responsible for 90% of bites in South Africa! Now this snake is cytotoxic so if you were to get bit, it would attack your skin tissue and spread so fast you could lose a limb if not treated, let’s just say the bites are nasty! So I was very very cautious when approaching this snake.
The truth about these snake bites!
We were given a long silver hook in which we used to wrap underneath the middle of the body, pick up and carefully place the snake into the plastic box. The boxes we used were designed to be tricky and hard to use with no handles, so when you bent down to place the lid on you had to make sure your fingers were nowhere near the edges of the box (this was the part I despised the most) Next we had to chase a spitting cobra across the yard with nothing but goggles and a stick, and when we caught up to it, we had to grab it by its tail and place it in a box. After this I walked into the house we were practicing in and one of the trainers who was acting like the customer, told me he saw a 3 meter hooded cobra in his house and it had disappeared into one of the large clay pots in the corner of the room. When I went to remove a straw hat placed on top of the pot I got shouted at, because the snake was in this pot and he could strike my hand through the hat, which I did not even think of! So I removed the hat with the clamping stick and carefully and painfully slow leaned my head over the top scared to death to look down at what I might see. When I got a good look I then realized what the hell am I doing here? This bad boy was huge! How could we go from such a small snake to the mother load? I mean couldn’t we have built it up a little? Plus no one showed me how to remove a snake from a 3 foot deep pot. I stuck my stick down in the pot and heard a hiss followed by a strike at the stick. Every inch of me was shaking; this was the most aggressive snake they had. I finally managed to get a good grip close to the head and slowly pulled it out. The snake was so heavy I couldn’t even hold the stick up properly and my arm was about to fall off! At this point I totally panicked and didn’t know what to do except yell out “I can’t do this! Please take it away!” But no one was in a position to help me so I had to proceed. I placed the snake down on the ground and without thinking released the clamp around its neck. Just then it whipped its head around hissed and shot its hood out while rising off the ground trying to make itself look even larger than it already was! The instructor kept yelling “get it get it before it escapes”! So after what seems 5 minutes of thinking of dropping the stick and running towards the door, I finally managed to get it behind its neck again. I thought the job was done and I would just have to place it into box until I heard him say “now grab its tail!” I looked at him like he was crazy, but at this point I was in such shock that it didn’t even matter anymore. So I grabbed its tail, placed it into the box and took a seat before I fell over. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, we moved outside and watched as our instructor brought over two more mystery boxes.
Little did I know I would have to run and jump on top of this snake
He opened one of the boxes and pulled out a Python larger than me! The only thing that crossed my mind at that stage was that the stick we have been using isn’t big enough for that! Our instructor had a towel in his hand and explained that in order to catch this python we would have to chase it down, throw the towel over its head, get on top of it, look for its head moving under the towel, place our hands down on top of the head, then slide a hand underneath the towel, grab it right behind its jaw and carry it with both hands to the box. Now the whole time he is explaining this, I am laughing because I thought he was just messing with us, but it wasn’t until after the first person went, did I realize he wasn’t kidding! This was the hardest thing I have ever had to do , not chasing it down, not throwing the towel over its head, but guessing where his head was without looking underneath the towel was just place suicide. Although the python is non venomous its teeth can tear straight through your hand with one bite which I was not ready to try. Eventually I got it into the box and just when I thought the adventure was over he pulled out a very large rock monitor (a prehistoric lizard) placed it on the ground and gave it a little kick and within a second it was gone for us to chase across the yard like maniacs , jump on top of without getting bit or clawed to pieces and choke behind the head to return to the box. A couple of people got bloody knees from this capture, but I managed to get out in one piece.
Little did I know I would be pulling this 4 m Black Mamba out of a tree with my hands!
Last but not least it was Black Mamba time which nothing can prepare you for. We weren’t allowed to pull it out of the box because of how fast it was but the instructor took it out and placed it up into a tree where it became at home and coiled itself all throughout the branches making our job harder. This mamba was so thick and so long it was unreal (about 4 meters long) when it was my turn to get it out my hands were so sweaty with nerves I had trouble grasping the clamp. Not for one moment did I take my eyes off its head and one by one grabbed a section of its body with the stick then pulled the rest out with its tail and over and over again, (like untangling a box full of shoelaces) until I got it unraveled. Never before did I imagine I would be holding a black mamba which can kill 5 grown men with one bite in less than 15 minutes in my hand! So to end my story I did pass and have my first and last snake handling certificate!
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