Snake Catcher and Eastern Brown Snake Have Intense Standoff at Sunshine Coast Home
A snake catcher in Queensland witnessed what he described as “one of the best defensive displays” ever seen when he was called to remove an eastern brown snake from a Sunshine Coast home.
Stuart McKenzie from Sunshine Coast Snake Catchers 24/7 posted video to Facebook on November 24, showing him arriving at the Twin Waters residence to remove the snake, which he said had been on the hunt for food in the family’s barbecue.
The snake is hidden among plants at first, but McKenzie forces it out of its hiding place and quickly corners it. With nowhere to go, the snake looks as if it is going to lunge towards McKenzie — which he says is a defensive act, despite looking like “chasing”.
Eventually, McKenzie manages to get the snake into his bag, and releases it back into the bush.
“Please remember this is NOT CHASING behaviour,” McKenzie wrote in the post. “This is a snake defending itself as it has nowhere to go. So cool!” Credit: Stuart McKenzie via Storyful
Video transcript
- But the snake's in there somewhere.
- Yeah.
- OK, you haven't seen it coming out?
- No.
- I've got a video here of where it is, oh.
- Oh, yeah.
- --dear life. Yeah, there's a dead on the floor of the beginning [INAUDIBLE] it's better there. [PHONE TONE]
Where you going?
[SCRATCHING]
[SHUFFLING]
- It's just here, coming around now.
- Hello Bub, down eight, eight, we getting down the back.
[SHUFFLING]
Yeah, this snake is going to feel cornered. That's the classic defensive posture of a brown snake. This snake currently feels cornered, it's got nowhere to go. So it's showing me its belly, it's basically saying Stu, back off.
I mean, I've got to catch her, all right. which way you going to go?
- Oh, there's a rat, don't go over there bud. Hey, hey, hey. Can you quickly-- can you get my bag for me?
- Yeah.
[SHUFFLING]
Hey, hey, look at this, look at this. Coming toward, now people might think this is chasing, but this is his defensive method. He's literally got nowhere to go. Hey, other-- Oh, You going to let me-- you going to let me catch you or not?
- Oh.
- You got a fighter. Oh, wow. So as you can see, he's very, very defensive. Now, people might see that as him chasing me. It certainly is not the case. That's his defensive posture. That's his way of saying Stu, back off.
He's cornering in this little alcove. And that's all he knew what to do. So I'll show you here in a second, watch any movement, look at that, any movement, but if I just back off, he kind of calms down. Hey, oh OK, he proved me wrong. You going to go in the bag. In the bag. Here we go. Here we go. What a snake, have a look at the size of him.
Wow, hey. Beautiful snake, probably around-- I say five foot once he stretched out. he's going to be cranky because as you can understand, he was cornered. But we going to let him go back in the bush now. See you bud.
[RINGING]
And the next goal comes in.
