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