As the summer weather heats up, snakes are becoming more active and daring.
The City of Ekurhuleni has increased the snake handling staff to enhance community safety and conservation of the snakes.
Mapaseka Maleka and Mbali Masango are both from Daveyton and they both share a passion for environment conservation, including snake handling.
Having undergone an intense snake-handling course at the African Snakebite Institute, the women are now well equipped with skills such as snake awareness, first aid for snakebites, and venomous snake-handling techniques.
Maleka said it took guts and bravery for her to develop a passion to handle snakes, given that it is a field perceived to be only for men.
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Maleka says: “I used to see my male colleagues responding to calls from members of the community to come assist them with snakes in their houses and I would see how terrified some people get by just looking at a snake in incidents where I went with my colleagues.
“That was when my passion to assist others grew.
“More importantly, I wanted to assist with first aid to those who got snakebites.”
Ekurhuleni is a habitat to the brown house snake, among others, known to frequent human dwellings where it feeds on rodents or lizards.
This snake is completely harmless and relies on muscle power to constrict its prey.
A brown house snake is active at night and relatively moves slow.
Meanwhile, the rinkhals snake resembles a cobra and is very poisonous and deadly.
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The rinkhals can spit venom with reasonable accuracy up to a distance of about two metres.
Upon catching the snakes, Maleka and Masango then release them by donating them on behalf of the City to The Snake City in Edenvale for conservation and educational purposes.
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