Durban — “That black mamba nearly took me out Thobeka,” South Coast snake catcher Sarel van der Merwe said during an interview with Daily News.
Van der Merwe was referring to a black mamba that had escaped his capture in Gamalakhe before, but this time, he had it cornered in a storeroom.
He said he had been trying for months to remove the snake from the property.
Every time he would get a call about the snake, it disappeared, Van der Merwe said.
“The snake was part of the family. It had been dodging for months.”
He said that when he got to the property last Monday, the homeowners showed him where they last saw the snake.
They pointed towards the roof of the storeroom, where it usually is, but he saw nothing.
“I opened the storeroom and saw it coming through the roof, and it hid behind some items in the storeroom. I then saw the head and tried to take a picture,” Van der Merwe said.
He said that he asked someone to be his photographer while he tried taking items out of the storeroom.
He said he continued to pull things out of the storeroom while the snake slithered from corner to corner, trying to find a way out.
“He tried to get back to the roof. He was all over and seemed to be in panic mode,” Van der Merwe said about the snake.
“I tried to grab him, then he came at me towards the door, and I fell backwards on my bum.
“My grab stick was too long. Falling made it easier to grab him. I fell backwards to have a safe distance to grab him. He wanted to get out of there. He would have bitten me if I hadn't fallen backwards. Then I pulled him out.
“It was a fighter,” Van der Merwe described the snake. “It was over 3 metres long. That is a monster.”
“How can I ask for a better catch? But, it wasn’t an easy one,” Van der Merwe said.
He added that the community was happy with him for catching the snake.
He also appealed to residents to keep their places clean, so they do not get rats which attract snakes.
Daily News
