Last weekend was one of the busiest on record for Richards Bay snake catcher Peter ‘Daring’ Daniel who spent it to’ing and fro’ing from call-out to call-out.
His first port of call was just after midnight on Friday for an upset southern African python measuring 2.7m at a home in Birdswood.
Much later, an emergency call came in from the golf estate in Meerensee, where a woman had spotted a forest cobra in her house.
On Sunday, an Arboretum call-out presented Peter with the chance to capture a beautiful 1.4m-long green mamba.
‘I then got a call from another snake catcher, Zephian Alberts for a possible black mamba in eSikhaleni,’ said Peter.
‘Zephian could not attend because he was on a call-out removing bees.
‘I had just put the phone down when the Meerensee golf estate resident phoned me for another forest cobra. This is in addition to the one I had caught at her place on Friday night.’
But Peter was already on his way to eSikhaleni and could not attend to the woman’s cry for help. Instead, he enlisted the help of fellow snake catcher Danie Nel.
The snake was trapped inside a laundry room.
‘While in eSikhaleni, I was called by a gentleman in Felixton, reporting a brown snake. We were battling to find the snake in eSikhaleni so I left, only to be phoned 15 minutes later when it returned.
‘I quickly turned back and caught the snake, which was an olive grass snake,’ said Peter.
He then raced to Felixton where he rescued the brown house snake from the bush.
But his day was not yet over, and Peter got a call from Danie requesting help capturing the forest cobra at the golf estate.
The snake had gone behind a cupboard and evaded capture for five hours.
‘I made my way there and we were given permission to break the bottom of the cupboard to get the snake out. About 20 minutes later the snake was out,’ he said.
Peter said the highlight of his adrenaline-packed weekend was the olive grass snake in eSikhaleni.
‘This catch was a hassle as I had a lot of things to move and had to go back a second time for it. The second forest cobra in Meerensee also took a while to get out.’
WATCH: Six snakes in one weekend for Richards Bay snake catcher
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