“Always carry a flask of whisky in case of snakebite…and furthermore, always carry a snake” (W.C.Fields)
Is it any surprise that many people are scared of snakes? Since the story of Adam and Eve, snakes have rarely been portrayed in a good light. Even today, watching some of the more over dramatic survival/nature programs (you know the ones, where the presenter dances and sidesteps around a snake as if it is about to explode) is enough to convince those who don’t know better that snakes are lethally aggressive creatures bent on nothing more than attacking as many humans as they possibly can.
The problem is that fear makes humans do stupid things: most of the locals I come across here will automatically kill a snake if they see one. Why? Because they’re scared of snakes, and they’re scared of snakes because they’ve been told scare stories since childhood. One popular belief is that if you don’t kill a snake that comes into your garden then it will ‘mark you for death’ and revisit vindictively until it finally gets the chance to strike you down…
Since I have lived in Malaysia I have had countless encounters with ‘dangerous’ snakes and never felt in the least bit threatened by them. That is not to say that I am not careful around snakes, I am, but I no longer take the horror stories I hear about snakes at face value – most are wildly exaggerated and many are quite simply untrue.
The risk from snakes is relatively low compared to that from other dangers in the jungle. In the last six years I’ve never come across anyone who has even been bitten by a snake and yet I know personally of two people who died of dengue (transmitted by mosquitos) and two who died after being stung by bees. This year a guide here in Malaysia was killed by a falling branch in the jungle – and yet, when I go camping I often notice how few people check for widow-makers (dead branches) above where they pitch their hammocks, but these same people will sit around the camp fire scaring themselves silly with stories of lethal snake attacks. In short, risk is relative, but we often worry most about low risk situations that have ‘nightmare’ outcomes whilst happily accepting high risk situations (e.g. driving) that we have come to accept as part of everyday life.
Knowledge is the key to managing fear and allows you to rationally look at risk and weigh it up. Similarly knowledge of what to do in the event of that ‘nightmare scenario’ happening not only stops it being a ‘nightmare’ scenario (psychologically transforming it into a calculated risk instead) but may even save your life.
It is the same with survival techniques – you may never need them (in fact you probably won’t) but it’s better to know them and not need them, than need them and not know them.
In this video I look at pythons from the perspective of a jungle trekker. In the six years I’ve been pottering around in the jungle I have only come across three, medium sized (10 – 15 feet) pythons in the wild – one was lounging around on a road (which I encouraged him to cross to safety using a long stick), one escaped up a tree when it saw me coming and the other came out to check out my dogs but fled when I got near, disappearing into the undergrowth.
I am not a herpetologist, nor am I any sort of wildlife expert, so the information I have has been gleaned mainly from conversations with snake handlers. I have never battled with a python (or even been bitten by one) so I don’t doubt that there are better informed people than me to discuss this subject. The problem I found, however, was that getting even some basic information on ‘what to do in the event of a problem with a python’ was not easy – searching on the internet unearthed some odd bits of good advice, a lot of bad advice and some advice that was dangerously wrong…
My favourite piece of ‘rubbish’ advice was told to me in all seriousness by a local here in Malaysia some years back. He described an epic battle he fought with a large python that had attacked him as he waded across a river. Taking out his parang, he wedged it between his chest and the constricting coils tightening around him, with the sharp edge pointed outwards. As the snake constricted harder it neatly sliced itself in two on the blade of his parang…
…and if you believe that story, you’ll believe anything.
Hi, really enjoy your videos on youtube. I live in Singapore and have some experience with reticulated pythons having kept them as pets and getting bitten and seeing them in the wild. I only got bitten once, when catching a small python in a friend’s garden that I then kept as a pet. I did not get a firm grip on it’s neck and it bit my left wrist. Knowing the teeth are recurved, I did not jerk away but just let go of the snake. It then let go of my wrist in order to try and run away, and then I caught it properly and put it in a sack. Because I did not try to pull away, I suffered very little damage from the bite, could see the dental pattern on my forearm: 4 rows of pin pricks where the top jaw had been and 2 rows for the bottom jaw. Had a tetanus jab at the hospital as a precaution but suffered no ill effects.
Kept it in a fish tank with the lid strapped down. At first we fed it sick chicks from a chicken hatchery but then discovered it would eat still warm hardboiled eggs with the shell removed, which made feeding it a lot easier. On a diet of hardboiled eggs, supplemented with a bit of calcium now and then, it grew to about 7 feet long and became somewhat used to being handled. Gave it to the reptile house at the zoo after that and the zookeeper gave me a hatchling python in exchange. The zookeepers had taped its mouth shut to handle it and after cutting the tape I could not get it to feed, so I released it in the jungle.
Here in Singapore pythons are not uncommon even in very urban areas of the city, where they live in underground drains or on rooftops and eat rats, pigeons, and the occasional cat. Have never heard of anyone here getting killed by one though they live close to humans.
I think if you get a defensive bite from a small python, just keep still, don’t hold it, and it will let go of you in order to flee – it is trying to scare you away, not eat you. A big python on the other hand may be a danger due to constriction. Recently (Dec 2013) a security guard at the Hyatt hotel in Bali, Indonesia tried to catch a 15 foot python that was crossing the road and was killed by it. He secured its head and tail but then put it on his shoulders and it strangled him. There were people around but they did not know how to help him. If he had just left it alone no one would have been hurt. If a big python must be caught, it takes several people to do it as it is very strong.
If you search youtube you can find a video called Anadonda bite which shows an Anaconda biting the arm of a policeman catching it. With the help of his mates he manges to unhook his hand by pushing it further into the snake’s mouth and then extracting it as another holds open the mouth.
I think if I was alone and attacked by a huge python and it started to constrict me, I would try to bite through the backbone to paralyse it or try to bash its head against something hard. If I could reach a knife or parang I would try to cut the spinal cord too. Such attacks are rare though. For some reason, although reticulated pythons are the longest snakes in the world, they seem to prefer smaller prey compared to say African rock pythons, which will tackle antelopes and seems to try to eat people more often. Besides that Kenyan man who was pulled into the tree, there was a Zambian truck driver who was nearly swallowed but his friends killed the snake.
Hi Beng Tang,
Many thanks for such an interesting comment and info – I had no idea that pythons could be fed hard boiled eggs! Interesting.
I read the article about the hotel guard in Indonesia who was killed by the python as well – the big mistake he seems to have made was to put the snake over his shoulders and I wonder whether it was actually constricting around his neck which would have killed him much faster than a body constriction. But it does seem odd that the people around him didn’t know what to do as a python that size should be relatively easy to unwind if you have enough people helping.
What you are saying about small python bites reflects very much what the zookeepers here in Malaysia told me….one of them was bitten and simply did nothing but wait until the python let go, just as you described. I have also seen photos of bites where the victim ripped their arm out of the python’s mouth and, as you point out, the recurved teeth will shred the skin and flesh. I guess it’s understandable if people panic, but if you can manage not to do this you can save yourself a lot of pain!
I was also very interested in what you are saying about the African Rock Python vs the reticulated python in terms of attacks on humans – that was something I did not know. I, too, had read about the Kenyan who was carried into the tree by a python- I seem to remember that it took him an hour or so to get free and you have to admire his determination!
Anyway, many thanks again for all the info.
Cheers!
Paul