MAITLAND MERCURY (Australia) 01 September 08 Brown snake’s visit ruins bathtub bliss (Alan Hardie)
A Rutherford woman’s blissful spell in her bathtub with a book lasted only a few seconds when she was thrown into a drama about a deadly eastern brown snake this weekend.
Amid the soap suds in rapidly cooling water, Ramona Cocco began a spate of desperate telephone calls to track down a snake catcher who could trap the reptile found in a neighbour’s Joshua Close garden.
Her first call to renown snake-catcher team Barry and Judith from Reptile Rescue brought an immediate response – they could be there in five minutes.
But the mission entailed a $25 callout fee.
Unable to authorise a payment from her bathtub on behalf of the neighbours, Ms Cocco began a frantic ring-around to see if someone would catch the snake for free.
Several calls to various wildlife and government-listed organisations brought no results.
So after an anxious 35-minutes, Ms Cocco finally ended up with Barry and Judith again.
The couple was quickly on the scene and snared the reptile without any hassles.
The drama happened shortly before 3pm on Saturday.
“I had settled myself in the bathtub and was on page 1 of my book when my husband knocked to tell me of the snake,” Ms Cocco told the Mercury yesterday.
“It was a desperate 35 minutes until I got back to Barry and Judith again,” Ms Cocco said.
“They had explained the $25 callout fee to me, but I felt I couldn’t authorise them to come without first talking to the neighbour.
“And from my bathtub, I thought it would be quicker to try to find someone who would come out for nothing than the time it would take me to get dressed and clear it with the neighbours,” Ms Cocco said.
“They gave me several other numbers to ring – but the whole thing rapidly turned into a nightmare.
“I could hear people yelling in the garden and I thought of the young children who might be bitten in the meantime.
“One person I rang asked me how I knew it was a snake if I was sitting in my bathtub.
“Another outlined the penalties of five years in jail and a $10,000 fine for killing an eastern brown snake.
“Still another told me the snake should be ‘removed’ from the neighbour’s garden and taken to its ‘natural habitat,’ wherever that was meant to be.”
Ms Cocco and her neighbour John Willis paid tribute to Barry and the deft way he caught the snake.
“He was thoroughly professional and very reassuring to everyone,” Ms Cocco said.
But the escapade revealed another problem facing the snake-catching team.
“We are fully licensed and insured and we want to be listed in the telephone book under the emergency section,” Judith said.
“Instead, we are listed in animal welfare – under pests.”
“How stupid is that,” said Ms Cocco.
“Reptile Rescue should be relisted under emergencies.
“What are eastern brown snakes if they are not emergencies?”
Reptile Rescue can be contacted 24 hours a day on 0429 325 905.
Brown snake’s visit ruins bathtub bliss