SNAKES might be seemingly everywhere this summer, but snake catcher Jake Hansen says they’re actually fairly stable.
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“Just through research, we know that most snakes are, if anything, declining,” he said.
“We know red belly black snakes and tiger snakes in particular, they seem to be particularly vulnerable because they live in swampy wetlands and there’s a lot of damage to the wetlands.”
Eastern brown snakes, on the other hand, are the opposite.
“Eastern browns are one of the ones benefiting from humans – we bring mice and that’s what they eat,” he said.
“It’s holding steady and maybe even building in numbers.”
Mr Hansen said highland copperheads and eastern browns were the most common snakes he came across, with copperheads the first to emerge in September.
He has removed 58 snakes so far this summer, with equal numbers of copperheads and browns.
He believed the perception of more snakes was due to the encroachment of housing estates into their habitat and most of the snakes he received callouts for were on town fringes.
“North Orange is up there and the Clifton Grove area is up there as well,” he said.
Among his more unorthodox catches was at O’Connell, near Oberon, where a copperhead took refuge in a pool filter.
“The kids were swimming in the pool and he came out of the filter box,” he said.
“They got out of the pool and it went back to the filter box and I just had to take it out.”
He warned snakes could still bite even in the water because several species could eat underwater, but he said the fear of snakes was often disproportionate to the threat they posed.
“They don’t rank as highly in animals that hurt us – they’re below horses and dogs and bees,” he said.
“The way we choose to interact with them affects how dangerous a snake is going to be.”
He said it was important to contact a snake catching service, emphasising killing a snake was illegal and those who attempted it put themselves at unnecessary risk.
“I don’t think I’m saving people’s lives, it’s more giving piece of mind,” he said.
“I put quite a lot of thought into where I release them because I don’t want them to come into contact with humans again – they’re an important part of the environment.”