SNAKES are a little like the classic jump scare toy, Jack-in-a-Box.
One minute you’re strolling, minding your own business, the next you’re doing the two step away from a nope rope.
Snakes love a warm tropical climate and my native South Africa is home to plenty of dangerous ones.
One afternoon my father spotted a vine snake in the tree branches above our driveway.
Vine snakes are incredibly dangerous, with highly toxic venom.
He phoned the police and they sent two constables out.
I recall seeing dad and the uniformed officers standing under the tree, formulating an action plan.
Next minute one of the cops pulls out his firearm and shoots the snake dead.
Problem solved – effective but hardly a conservationists best action.
As a young journalist I took a phone call from a local logging company owner who told me a boa constrictor with a large buck in its belly had been found by his staff.
There was concern the workers would cut it up and use the parts in traditional medicine.
Snakes feature throughout African folklore and parts of them are used to make ‘muti’ or traditional medicine by witch doctors.
I was taken up an embankment in a four wheel drive ute, in its tray was a large barrel and beside that sat some of the workers.
We reached a point where the ute could no longer navigate the terrain and the final leg was done on foot.
The bushland was thick and hard to get through, after about 15 minutes we reached a clearing and there it was, the biggest snake I’d ever seen.
The boa constrictor must have been close to four metres long.
Like a poorly disguised gift, the shape of the buck could be seen pushing up inside it.
“We need to make sure we don’t frighten the snake or it will regurgitate the buck and likely choke in the process,” the logging manager said.
One of the workers put a bag over the snake’s head. It took five men to pick up the snake and put it into the barrel.
With snake safely ensconced, we made the journey back.
So far so good, snake was keeping its tucker down and the old bag over the head trick seemed to have worked.
Pulling back into the timber yard we were greeted by at least 100 people.
Villagers had heard all about the big ‘inyoka’ and were keen to check it out.
I stood on the ute tray, camera in hand, ready to get some photos of the snake once the bag was removed.
From my vantage point I saw the crowd surge towards the ute, some climbed the sides and all were excited about what was in the barrel.
When the logging manager removed the bag, the snake shot out of the barrel like a Jack-in-the-Box.
I got the shots but the photos didn’t turn out well.
Those were the days of spool cameras, we didn’t have all the features of digital cameras.
I’ll never forget seeing all these workers go from curious to absolutely petrified within seconds.
Some climbed the nearby trees while others scaled a wall.
Thankfully a few were okay that a buck-eating-boa-constrictor had just missile launched itself out of a barrel.
They pushed it down, put the bag back over its head and a lid on the barrel.
I don’t know if that snake managed to keep its buck down and digested or if it ended up in the traditional medicine trade.
I’m hoping it was set free at some point, just perhaps somewhere very, very far away from me.
