Sadly, there are those who still believe that ‘the only good snake is a dead snake’.
(And we are not talking about lawyers here, Stoppy, heh, heh.)
Yes, there are some pretty scary critters out there like mambas and such, but ‘man’ is hardly their natural prey. Quite the opposite, in fact.
WE are a SNAKE’S worst nightmare!
OK, maybe the thought of a scaly, slithery creature gives you the heebie jeebies, but that’s no excuse to kill it.
One doesn’t really want to question the Bible, but were snakes in the Garden of Eden such ‘deceptive creatures’ or ‘tricksters’ as portrayed in Genesis 3:1?
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Today, most people should understand that snakes will do everything possible to flee when man approaches. They will only attack when threatened… or stepped on, like the United States after Pearl Harbour.
So leave them alone to do what nature intended them to do: Keep other pesky animals like rats in check for starters. Rats were the carriers of the ‘Black Death’ (bubonic plague) that killed about 25 million people in Europe in the 1300s. Snakes are not known to carry fleas.
Pythons seem to be particularly vulnerable, probably because they grow to become quite large, but 1970s stripper Glenda Kemp proved they are quite harmless, even exotic in this case as well. She named her snake ‘Oupa’ and they were… err… very intimate.
Another beautiful specimen, which was raised from an ankle-licker by a South Coast family, was taken for a slither on Umtentweni Beach quite recently.
Those walking their small, yapping turd-droppers hightailed it for the dunes. Irate mothers hid their babies and phoned the Herald to call in the Mounties.
The family paid our offices a visit after photographs appeared in the Herald and we were introduced to ‘Grumpy’… who actually turned out to be quite friendly.
Granted, some staff members cringed and wouldn’t touch the large snake, but the brave agreed for it to be draped over their shoulders and become better acquainted.
It was a new and exhilarating experience for them. Even better, they all sort of lost their fear of snakes.
It’s a highly endangered species and schools in particular should really be educating their children about this.
Now, spiders… that’s another story, of course.
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