DURBAN - Snake catcher rescues two black mambas from two homes situated 10 minutes from each other in Inanda, north of Durban.
On Tuesday, Nick Evans was on his way to rescue a black mamba located between the top of the wall and the roof when he received a second call about another black mamba nearby.
Evans said he walked into a large storeroom which was filled with items.
“After spending ages at the other call, I didn't feel like a lengthy search here. Also because I would be ticked off if I cleared that room, and found no snake. There was a gap in the window.”
He went through the storage at a decent pace, and soon, he was sure the snake was in one of two places – under a kitchen sink, or back in the bush.
“I had only noticed the sink when I was about to call it a day.
“I lifted it, and to my relief, there was the mamba! It was very dark, clearly 'in the blue', about to shed.”
He said that when mambas were in the blue, he found them to be a lot more feisty. Their vision was affected during that phase, and that makes them even more scared. He definitely preferred catching them when they were not in the blue.
“This is probably the chunkiest black mamba I've caught in Inanda. Decent length too, around 2.3m.
“Most Inanda mambas I get are a bit on the underweight side.”
Earlier, Evans had descended on two buildings next to each other with about a 40cm space between the two.
“The mamba had apparently exited the room it was in (it was more of a shack), and went into the wall next to it, through a hole. It had obviously then either moved to the side or down, through the blocks.
“This made things tricky.”
Evans said that luckily, the room had two layers of bricks. The outside ones would be easy to break but the inside ones not so much, and they were not keen on that.
“Residents and I tried breaking, but with such a small space, it was incredibly difficult to do much. Two guys got on the roof of the shack, which did not look stable at all, and tried breaking holes there.”
He said they were getting desperate and frustrated because they were unsure what they should do.
“Eventually, one of the residents went inside the room, a bedroom, broke a small hole above the bed, and called me to shine my torch inside. Sure enough, there was the mamba!
“We moved the bed back, and I started breaking the hole open a bit more. I just needed a little more space to grab it. As it was starting to move upwards, I got the tongs on it. I gently pulled and got the tail out.
“I thought I was going to be pulling it out, gently. Instead, it just started reversing, quite suddenly. The whole snake came out, and it reversed into my tongs as I had hoped. I soon had the head secured.”
Evans said the mamba had been seen on the roof for the past few weeks.
Daily News