Trio of rare 2m pythons slither into town
The long-running dry-spell and recent fires in Tom Price have increased the number of snakes in town.
Last week three rare 2m metre long Pilbara olive pythons were caught by the Tom Price volunteer snake rescue centre.
Volunteer Dot Salmon said in the 12 years she and her husband Jim have been rescuing snakes locally, they had never seen such large olive pythons in town.
"We've had a lot of Olives here since we started up, but never three big ones like this," she said.
"They would each be over 2m long and 5-10kg in weight.
"Unfortunately this wet season we've had very little rain, the water holes have dried out and we've had the fires, so there's no food for them and they come into town skinny and thirsty looking for food.
"Now the problem we have with releasing the pythons close to where they came from is they will just come back into town.
"We need to take them out to places where they have water and a good food supply." Her husband urged residents not to attempt to capture or harm olive pythons found in town.
"The easy way to tell the difference between a venomous snake from a harmless one is to look at the scales," he said. "If it has big scales, it's deadly, if it's got little fine scales like a python, the snake is harmless.
"If you find a snake and you're not sure what it is, please call us and we will come and identify it.
"It is illegal to catch a snake unless you are a qualified snake handler.
"We have eight trained catchers volunteering for us who are on call 24 hours a day.
"We catch anything and everything.
"In the last two months I personally have caught over 50 snakes (and) we have rehabilitated and released over 1500 snakes since opening in 2003."
The Salmons' snake rescue centre is funded purely by donations from the community.
If you wish to make a donation or are interested in becoming a volunteer snake catcher, email jmsalmon@ westnet.com.au or phone 0418 891 457.
