Meet the people A trio of pest removalists tell Cameron Lucadou-Wells these animals could use a bit more love.Snakes are given a bad rap, says snake handler and removalist Sean McCarthy.
He says they’re great for controlling pest animals such as mice and rats and want to hide rather than attack people.
‘‘Snakes can sneak around virtually without being seen and they can’t be heard — that’s what scares people. Most people have been brought up that snakes are a taboo animal. Even today, those who keep a pet python are considered eccentric, while keeping a cat is normal.’’
In a way, McCarthy’s business Snakehandler thrives on people’s fear and ignorance on handling snakes. He is one of many hired in Melbourne to remove unwanted animals. His passion is snakes but others are called out to rid homes of possums, bees, wasps, spiders and other creepy-crawlies.
Each day, McCarthy will get up to eight calls to remove snakes from inside houses, en suites, backyards and swimming pools. Many of the calls are from bushy, fringe suburbs like Wantirna, Warrandyte and Werribee.
Yet for many people, their first instinct is to kill rather than call in McCarthy to bag the reptile and let it out in the wild.
Last month, a man searched his son’s Ferntree Gully backyard for a snake, found it under old carpet and cut it into three pieces — an illegal action given snakes are protected. The man could be potentially fined up to $6100, but McCarthy believes such snake-hunts only increased the man’s chances of being bitten.
In Australia, about 5000 people are bitten by snakes a year. Despite the deadly fear, only about two of these bites prove fatal. McCarthy says it compares favourably to the amount of injuries caused by domestic animals. Horses kill about seven people a year.
McCarthy’s personal reptile collection of snakes, lizards, turtles and crocodiles amounts to somewhere between 200 and 300. He got his official training as a snake handler in 2001 but dabbled at a much younger age.
‘‘I can’t honestly remember when I picked up my first snake in the wild. I was an adventurous sort of kid who would do silly things. I was brought up by a father who taught me to respect wildlife. When you handle snakes, you have to empathise with them. You be gentle and you understand these animals are frightened too.’’
McCarthy has never been bitten by a wild snake, but even for experienced handlers such as himself, there are risks. He prefers to lift snakes gently by the tail from behind and rarely uses ‘‘toys and hooks’’ to catch them.
‘‘Tailing has a high degree of risk but we like to use it because we can feel what the snake is doing and the snake is at less risk of harm.’’
For bee enthusiasts, though, being bitten is a natural part of the job — apiarist Steven Brown has lost count of how many times he’s been stung during a trip to a hive. He’s known of people who were stung up to 200 times in one misadventure.
“There was a particularly angry hive at a friend’s place and they got down my suit. But once they’re in, you can’t just stop, shove away the bees and fix the opening in the suit. They counted more than 20 stings and I’d taken out quite a few earlier.’’
Brown gets called in when people’s trees, walls and backyards become the home to a swarm of thousands of bees.
Wearing his apiarist suit, he lures the bees into a box with a frame full of wax. The swarm will become some hobbyist’s hive and a handy cross-pollinating help for gardens — although people often just call in an exterminator.
Brown says poisoning the bees should only be necessary if they cannot be retrieved from a hard-to-get-at space such as a home’s wall cavity.
Sometimes demolition of external and internal walls is required to get to the swarm. “There was a lady with bees behind her toilet that got in a hole in the ceiling. The bees would appear as she sat on the toilet,’’ Brown said.
In some cases, people decide to live with the bees rather than having them poisoned or pulling down a room of their house. “People who have got bees have better vegie patches because of cross-pollination.’’
A member of Southside Beekeepers Club, Brown started keeping bees when one of his garden’s possum boxes were taken over by them.
He says keeping bees is fun and very addictive. He’s kept up to nine hives and made enough money out of honey to buy the occasional tool for the shed.
You can’t help but admire the organisation: nurses who nurture the young, guards who protect the hive and workers who collect nectar combine to support the queen.
There’s a fair turnover of bees — in a 60,000-bee hive, the queen lays about 2000 eggs a day to replace the regular casualties.
“Bees just fly their wings off. They don’t sleep, they are always working — a lot of bees die every day. I’ve always been fascinated by them.’’
Possum catcher Peter McKirdy, otherwise known as ‘Possum Pete’, has also had his share of scars — a roused-up possum’s bite can blister a finger under the thickest of leather gloves.
McKirdy is called in to remove possums from ceilings and walls. Many seem to like nestling, scratching and peeing a strong stench near the master bedroom.
“They like company,’’ he says.
Part of the challenge was to keep the highly territorial possums out. It’s illegal to relocate possums more than 50 metres away.
“They will travel a long way to get back, anyway. They say you need a river between you and the possum, and then a pretty tricky bridge to cross to keep them away.
“If you take them somewhere else, most end up getting killed. Other possums don’t put up with them raiding their territories.’’
He says it’s better to get possums out of the house early than to leave it several years. “Some people have put up with them for 5-10 years. Boy, you then have a problem to keep them out.
“Most of the time you’ve got to find where they’re getting in. The most common access is a broken tile, under an eave or gaping timber flashing on the roof. All they need is a gap slightly larger than a tennis ball. They can contract themselves to get in.’’
McKirdy estimates about 75 per cent of his clients want the possums killed, although they are a protected species.
“They tend to do a lot of damage inside houses — things like wiring, roofing iron. I’ve seen them eat through lead flashing and soft timber to get in. They generally eat their vegies and their roses but you’ve just got to live with them.”
GOT A PEST PROBLEM? Visit Snake Handler or Possum Pete.
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