Are Free Snake Catcher s A Thing?
No, the council does not supply a free snake catcher service. No snake catching service is free. Several people with ‘experience’ may offer to remove the snake for free but majority of the time they do not hold appropriate licensing and rarely have real experience with anything besides captive pythons (if that). These people are at a higher risk of being bitten, misidentifying and are acting illegally, possibly leaving you or them with a large fine. Some people may hold a license and perform snake removals for free but these people do it for friends only and don’t have insurance so if they cause damage to your house they will leave you with a large bill. We however, are insured, licensed and very affordable. We remove snakes for only $70, will help anyone in need out and very informative. We have experience with many snakes as we interact with various species on a regular basis. Give us a call, we are very competitively priced!
What if the snake is gone by the time you arrive?
Snakes don’t like to be out in the open and may be just moving through your property. We do our best to get to you ASAP when you make that call but sometimes they have disappeared by the time we get there or have gone somewhere that we are unable to reach them e.g. under a concrete slab. When you call and ask us to come out, you will be required to pay the call out fee whether we catch the snake or not.
What snake is this?
If you are able to take a picture on your phone from a safe distance and send it to us on 0419 443466 we can ID the snake for you. This can be a little tricky some times due to the quality of the picture but a positive ID can be made in most cases. Your safety is the most important thing here though, do not get too close.
Do pythons keep away the venomous snakes?
The simple answer is no. Pythons and many other snakes can happily co-exist in the same environment. There is a catch tho, they need a certain amount of food to sustain each snake. If there are lots of rats, frogs and other food sources then there can be several snakes in the same area. Although if there is limited rodents you may only find one or the other because competition for food is high. Competition for the same, limited food source can lead to less diversity but if you have lots of frogs and only a few rats, you may find pythons and some frog eating species like the red-belly black snake happily co-existing with limited to no competition for food. It also depends on habitat, you may have limited species by virtue of the environment not because one scares or eats the other. Snakes are cannibalistic though (some more than others), and you can get predation but that doesn’t stop the next door snake coming for a visit next time.
Do baby snakes mean that the parent will be close by?
Simply put, not usually. When snakes hatch or are born (some give live birth), they immediately disperse and become independent snakes. Some snakes do incubate their eggs and this means that early in the season when they begin hatching its possible to find the babies close to the mother. This describes pythons with big bodies able to incubate the eggs well, but small bodied snakes like eastern browns will lay their eggs and move on.
Do Blue Tongue Lizards eat snakes?
Strangely we get asked this question some what frequently. I’m not sure where this myth originated but blue tongues are more likely to end up on the menu for snakes. Blue tongues primarily eat insects and fruits but will eat any meat they find, so if they found a small, slow moving snake then maybe. They are not fast or aggressive hunters and eat mostly grubs, snails or plant material… Things that don’t move very quickly. Many snakes, however, feed primarily on reptiles including the poor blue tongues.
