WHEN snake catcher Harrison Aveleven gets a callout to the Rosewood or Walloon area his expectation is he will be wrangling one of the more poisonous species – a red-bellied black or a brown snake.
The former roofer moved into snake catching and says he is currently responding to 10 to 15 calls per day.
He’s learned from experience that a ubiquitous tree snake is unlikely to be the subject of the rehoming callout when it comes to the Rosewood and Walloon districts.
And so it was last Thursday morning.
Harrison is part of the team from Rapid Snake Catchers 24/7. They work in conjunction with Ipswich Snake Catchers divvying up the callouts based on who is closer to the address where there is an unwanted snake.
On Thursday morning the call had come from a couple living in a residential street in Rosewood.
About mid-morning, the husband had gone out to put some garden clippings into the bin and saw the end of a tail moving under the bin, thinking it was possibly a snake or a lizard.
He gingerly moved the bin and to his chagrin, he watched a “black snake” slither swiftly from the pad on which the green bin stood to the neighbouring pad under the recycled bin.
He called his wife outside and they quickly agreed that moving the snake was not going to be part of their remit.
The call to the snake catcher was made and 15 minutes later, Harrison arrived.
While the couple stood at a safe distance, Harrison moved the bin and found a red-bellied black snake curled up.
He nudged it to make it uncoil so he could pick it up, and a small, but very lucky, native rocket frog was revealed.
The snake captured, Harrison left soon after to rehome it in a remote bush reserve.
