Durban — A snake catcher and his assistant were faced with a tricky and dangerous problem when they had to remove a juvenile green mamba from between the wooden boards of a log cabin.
South Coast snake catcher Sarel van der Merwe said he and his assistant, Emma-Jane Cox, were called out on Friday afternoon to remove the snake from inside a log cabin at Palm Beach.
Van der Merwe said he had been sent a photograph for identification, but all he could see from the picture was that it was a green snake.
“It was a bad-quality photo; I couldn’t see the head, only green skin, so I couldn’t identify it.”
However, when he arrived at the scene and saw the snake he suspected it was a juvenile green mamba by its thickness.
Van der Merwe then used an endoscope to get a closer look at the creature, to make 100% sure it was a juvenile green mamba.
But getting it out was not easy. The young snake was trapped between a plank and the logs of the cabin.
“I couldn’t get it out; It was not easy to get the green mamba out [from] between [a] plank and the logs of the log cabin.”
Van der Merwe said he used a small crowbar to loosen some nails, a manoeuvre that broke the plank but resulted in him grabbing and securing the snake.
“Rather a broken plank than to keep a green mamba,” Van der Merwe said.
He and Cox released the snake the next day.
He added that he has been busy lately, but didn’t consider his latest tussle with a green mamba anything to write home about.
Daily News