A snake in the class
Today I killed a snake. Or rather, helped kill one. I'm not sure how I feel about it, given I have a phobia of the things, but I felt a bit sorry for it.
It happened as I turned up to the Uni early in the morning, and walking down the corridor saw a guy standing in the doorway of a classroom who motioned me over. In the middle of the room was a small brown snake, not fully grown. It must have got in via a vent and was in "offensive/defensive" pose - ie. it was curled in a couple of loops with its body in the air. Oddly not hissing at all. Not sure what the proper australian snake etiquette was, and given that the other guy was a local, I decided to follow his lead. We couldn't leave it to slither around the Uni or leave it in the classroom, so we decided the best thing would be to kill it. Not very ecologically correct, perhaps, but they're not really endangered. How to do it? Well, we settled on the not-very-heroic-really method of throwing things at it. First a bag. The only result was to annoy it further as it darted from a stationary position at us whenever we came near it. However, rather than head for cover (and safety) it seemed to think it was safer in the middle of the room. So we threw desks at it, eventually injuring it enough so that we could administer the coup de grace. Luckily I had my steel toe-capped boots on.
Afterwards, looking at it lying there with its mouth agape and fangs, it seemed a bit pathetic and I wondered whether we should have tried to catch it somehow. But then I remembered a few months ago when a massive one lay in wait for me as I got off the bus and tried to get me, and my sympathy diminished somewhat.
We left it there in the middle of the room, mainly just to give whoever found it a shock. Not something I am particularly proud of, as despite it's fangs and venom it was a fairly one-sided fight, and by it's desperate lunges I think it knew it as well.
It happened as I turned up to the Uni early in the morning, and walking down the corridor saw a guy standing in the doorway of a classroom who motioned me over. In the middle of the room was a small brown snake, not fully grown. It must have got in via a vent and was in "offensive/defensive" pose - ie. it was curled in a couple of loops with its body in the air. Oddly not hissing at all. Not sure what the proper australian snake etiquette was, and given that the other guy was a local, I decided to follow his lead. We couldn't leave it to slither around the Uni or leave it in the classroom, so we decided the best thing would be to kill it. Not very ecologically correct, perhaps, but they're not really endangered. How to do it? Well, we settled on the not-very-heroic-really method of throwing things at it. First a bag. The only result was to annoy it further as it darted from a stationary position at us whenever we came near it. However, rather than head for cover (and safety) it seemed to think it was safer in the middle of the room. So we threw desks at it, eventually injuring it enough so that we could administer the coup de grace. Luckily I had my steel toe-capped boots on.
Afterwards, looking at it lying there with its mouth agape and fangs, it seemed a bit pathetic and I wondered whether we should have tried to catch it somehow. But then I remembered a few months ago when a massive one lay in wait for me as I got off the bus and tried to get me, and my sympathy diminished somewhat.
We left it there in the middle of the room, mainly just to give whoever found it a shock. Not something I am particularly proud of, as despite it's fangs and venom it was a fairly one-sided fight, and by it's desperate lunges I think it knew it as well.
posted by Hamish @ 8:10 pm
2 Comments:
How venomous is that kind of snake? Killer/nasty rash/just smarts a bit
Apparently it was a brown snake (the colour offered a clue...). I believe they are one of the more deadly snakes, despite the innocuous name, but I would have been able to get to hospital in time. It wasn't fully grown.
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