Saving Snakes

Category: 3. Pythonidae - BOAS AND PYTHONS | Date: Nov 24 2007 | By: admin

This evening I had a great phone call from Joff Minns, a good friend of mine who runs a Dhow trip North of Lamu. On the evening of the19th of November 2007 the Tusitiri was mored about 200 meters from the shore in a bay at Ndau, a few kilometres South West of Kiwaiyu Island. All the guests and crew had settled in for the night aboard the big dhow. The following morning at about 5 am, Joff was woken up by one of his crew members. “Amuka Bwana! Tunataka torchi yako kutafuta nyoka” he said. Literally translated it means “wake up Sir! we need your torch to look for a snake”. Thinking it must be a stow away from when they collected supplies in Lamu town, Joff got up and went with the crew member wondering whether it would be a House Snake or a Speckled Bush Snake.

He got the shock of his life when it turned out to be a 14 foot African Rock Python Python sebae. Following the wet tracks it had left on the deck it was obvious that the snake had climbed up the ladder on the side during the night and passed through guests and crew members who were sleeping soundly on the deck oblivious to their visitor. You can imagine how the guests must have reacted when woken up to be shown what had climbed on board. Joff who has been exposed to our snake enthusiasm in the past managed to apprehend the snake and get it into a dingy tethered to the side of the dhow. They carried the snake to the shore and released it accordingly.

It is very strange that a python would be there at all. He believes that it got caught by the outgoing tide and by luck bumped into the dhow where it managed to climb up the ladder. What a very lucky snake and an amazing snake story indeed. Joff said he has some pictures which I can’t wait to see. I’m sure you feel the same way so will post one or two on this blog once I get them.

Meanwhile I have a picture of a Python about the same size taken three years ago.

Photo by Prof. Ralf Sautter

Technorati : African Rock Python, Central African Rock Python, Python sebae

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Category: 6. Elapidae - COBRAS and MAMBAS | Date: Nov 24 2007 | By: admin

Yesterday we noticed that one of our Black Mambas Dendroaspis polylepis was still sick. It has been sick for a few days now. It developed an infection in the mouth associated with Mouth Rot (Necrotic stomatitis). The Bio-Ken team removed it from its cage and Sanda Ashe, my fellow Director, gave it a Oxytetracycline injection, about 0.5 ml sub-cutaneously. The mamba was returned to its cage and is looking much better this morning.

Bio-Ken holds about 46 Black Mambas in its milking program. The snakes are milked every three weeks and the venom is dessicated and stored. The Venom is then moved on to make antivenom and is also used in medical research both of which end up saving peoples lives. The method of keeping the Mamba’s at Bio-Ken was instigated by the late James Ashe who founded Bio-Ken in 1980. The system has been improved over the years and our oldest Mamba’s have been with us for about 18 years now.

Mambas are difficult to keep in captivity as they are very nervous and especially Black Mambas, some never settle down. About 3 in every 5 collected are like this so we release the Mambas that don’t settle after six weeks of trying. Of coarse a snake in the wild is better than in a cage, but antivenom is a necessity and almost all the snakes are collected from where they are causing a problem. If we did not remove these snakes they would certainly be killed.

Photo by Wolfgang Wuster

Photo by Royjan Taylor

It would be good to note that availability of good Antivenom and information on treatment can be obtained through ” The James Ashe Antivenom Trust” commonly known as JAAT.

Technorati : Black Mamba, Dendroaspis polylepis

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