Boo, hiss.
A homeowner was terrified to discover nearly 100 venomous snakes in a writhing black knot in his backyard — in a case experts have described as a “rare occurrence.”
The trouble began last week when David Stein initially spotted a handful of the slithering creatures clustered together in his garden — leading the Australia man to immediately call in a specialized removal crew.
AP
While waiting for assistance, he began researching on the internet and learned that the snakes in question — red-belly blacks — are known to climb on top of one another before giving birth to a litter.
Sure enough, when snake catcher Dylan Cooper arrived at Stein’s house in suburban Sydney a few hours later to help Stein remove the creatures from his yard, the pair discovered a whopping total of 102 of the poisonous beasts — from pregnant all the way down to newborns — hidden in the mulch.
“Just seeing that amount in one group, it gives you a bit of the shudders,” Stein told the Associated Press.
The men rolled up their sleeves and bagged the reptiles to take them away. Several of the snakes are believed to have given birth in the bag.
“You can get a decent number like that when the babies are hatching,” Reptile Relocation owner Cory Kerewaro said. “But to have this many venomous snakes, no one’s come across it.”
In the end, the professionals counted five adult snakes and 97 offspring.
AP
A video of the captured snakes squirming in a huge pile posted on Reptile Relocation’s Facebook horrified viewers.
“I’d be moving out!” one person wrote online.
“I wouldn’t even pack my stuff,” another agreed. “I’d just leave. The house, the mulch pile. It’s all theirs now!”
AP
However, Scott Eipper, an Australian snake expert, insisted “this is an isolated incident.”
“It’s certainly a very rare occurrence,” he told the AP.
The largest snake removal job Kerewaro has ever heard of was 30 non-venomous carpet Pythons.
Stein was told more snakes could slither back to his property to give birth next year — so he’ll be making his lot much less hospitable for the creatures.
Sunrise
“Within the next couple of days, this big pile of mulch will be gone,” Stein confirmed.
Kerewaro has kept the snakes while determining the best way to release them back into the wild.
“Because there was such a large number, obviously people were a bit concerned where 100 snakes were going to go,” Kerewaro said.
He has been granted permission by government officials to release them into a national park but has yet to do so.
To ease worriers’ minds, he insisted “they’ll be far enough away to avoid any human interaction: 100 snakes are going into the middle of the bush in the middle of nowhere.”
While Stein quickly cleared his home in hopes of discouraging the snakes from returning, one man in Florida transformed his house into a haven for hundreds of exotic reptiles — and even lets his young kids cuddle with the slithery serpents in bed.
“It’s normal for our family,” said Socratis Christoforu of Fort Lauderdale.
His collection includes rare green tree pythons, Amazon basin boas, Boeleni pythons and two venomous species, including a rear-fanged Bioga.
