Clean your yard, cut long grass and stack any loose materials upright – that’s the advice from Lake Macquarie Snake Catcher Colin Shoemark, who is currently dealing with the reptiles on a daily basis.
As the weather warms up in the region, Colin says snakes are waking from their winter slumber and getting more active.
With the extra movement chances are snakes will cross our paths, he warns.
“In winter I might get one or two calls a week to come and remove a snake,” he says.
“At the moment my phone runs hot all day, I could be answering at least 10 calls a day.”
The snakes, he says, come in an array of colours and sizes, and have been spotted at most Hunter areas.
“I’ve caught snakes in nearly every suburb of Newcastle and Lake Macquarie, even on Steel Street in Newcastle, near Marketown,” he says.
“At a factory bay in Charlestown I caught five diamond pythons recently. The first day I caught the female, had a look around and couldn’t find anything else.
“The next day I got a call and found a procession of males over the next few days. They were coming for the female, her scent was still there.”
Pythons, marsh snakes, a rare death adder, green snakes and even a blue-bellied snake have been spotted in the Hunter.
The two most common species in Lake Macquarie are the Red-Bellied Black snake and the Eastern Brown.
The Red-Bellied Black snake lives near the water, preferring to nestle in near streams, creeks and lagoons, or hide in long grass, under rocks and in burrows.
Classified as a medium-sized snake they grow to between 1.5 and 2 metres in length.
While the head and body are black, sometimes their snout is light-brown yet their under belly is always a bright red which fades to orange or pink in the middle.
Eastern Brown snakes also grow to an average of 1.5 to 2 metres, and range in colour from a milky coffee colour to almost black, with younger snakes boasting dark bands running down their bodies and spots on their bellies.
This species is happy living among humans, finding shelter under structures in gardens as well as long grass, bushland and scrub.
Eastern Browns are however, prone to striking humans if under attack, unleashing a venom that is responsible for the highest percentage of human deaths of any species in Australia.
“Nine times out of ten though, when someone calls me about a brown snake in their yard it’ll be a golden crown,” Colin says.
“They’re nocturnal, which is why I’ll usually get the call out at night, when they’re out hunting for food.”
Colin has owned a ‘catch and release’ snake license since 2016, but his love of the creatures began much sooner.
“I’ve always had reptiles,” he says.
“I had a blue-tongue [lizard] since I was eight years old. He only passed away two years ago.
“But my earliest memory of a reptile was when I was six and our dalmatian [dog] got bitten by an Eastern Brown next door, and it passed away.
“I was forever looking over the fence at this thing that took such a big part of my life away and thinking ‘I don’t understand’.
“Then I saw a blue tongue and kept it for a bit. We’d do that over the years, keep it for a little bit then let it go, and when I got a bit older I got a reptile license and started collecting animals.”
Colin is permitted to catch and release from backyards only.
“I get a lot of calls from parks and campgrounds, my permit doesn’t allow me to do that, unless the council calls me.”
He then must relocate the snake within 20km of where it was caught.
And while his favourite reptile, he admits is hard to say, he does sport a tattoo of a blue-tongue lizard on his left forearm.
So what should a Novocastrian do if they come across a snake?
“You can scream all you want, they won’t hear you, do you see any ears on them,” Colin asks.
“It comes down to a primal fear of them, but the only way to get rid of them is to have a clean yard free of debris, no vermin, and If you’ve got building materials in your yard stack them upright, don’t lie them down.
“There’s no magic potion that gets rid of them.
“I’m also a big believer in having a barrier, like mouse mesh. Its metal wire with 6mm by 6mm holes, the snakes just tend to hit that and go another way.
“Don’t muck around with a brown, they’re the ones that if you corner it, it will have a go.
“Be an expert at painting your house, doing your own electrical, and mowing your lawn, but leave the snakes to someone else.”
And if you do get bitten by a snake?
“I’ve been bitten by pythons lots of times, but not by venomous snakes,” Colin says.
“If you get bitten by a Red-Bellied you can lose sense of smell and taste.
“Try to drop the fear.
“Venom moves around the lymphatic system so if you panic the venom will keep moving around your body.
“Wrap up your arm and get to the hospital.”
“They’re reclusive creatures, they don’t want to be found, they want to just go about their business. Leave them alone and give us a call, that’s my advice.”
*Lake Macquarie Snake Catcher has a regularly updated Facebook page for more information
Get all the latest Newcastle news, sport, entertainment, lifestyle, competitions and more delivered straight to your inbox with the Newcastle Weekly Daily Newsletter. Sign up here.
