AFP 11 November 04 Slithering menace leaves Singaporeans afraid to go to toilet
Singapore (AFP): Emerging out of toilet bowls, wrapping themselves around altars in high-rise apartments and feasting on kittens, snakes have earnt themselves a fearsome reputation in highly urbanised Singapore.
More than 80 snake species exist alongside this tiny Southeast Asian city-state's bustling population of 4.3 million people, with pythons as long as seven metres (23 feet) and deadly black spitting cobras among the most common.
While vast swathes of tropical Singapore have been turned over to housing and offices during its rapid development from third-world status to first in little more than 30 years, snakes have adapted and in some cases thrived.
Their habitats include the lush forests and parks that still take up significant tracts of land, mangroves and reservoirs, as well as gardens of the large middle and upper classes who can afford landed properties.
The nation's sewage system is also infested with pythons and cobras, giving rise to tales, some of which are undoubtedly urban myths, of city dwellers encountering snakes while with their pants around their ankles at the toilet.
"Pythons live in the sewers because their food source is there. They feed on the sewer rats. It's also a place that is perpetually damp and they are undisturbed. So it's ideal for them," pest control expert Patrick Chong told AFP.
Chong said his company received two cries for help recently from the first-floor tenants of an office building in the heart of the business district.
"We are not sure whether they were imagining it but twice they claimed there was a snake that came up through the toilet bowl," said Chong, the operations director at Aardwolf Pestkare, one of Singapore's biggest pest control companies.
Chong said that while no snake was found on that occasion, snakes had indeed been found in toilets.
Chong recalled an incident many years ago when there was a report of a snake in the toilet of a suburban house, but which had disappeared by the time his crew had arrived.
"So we tied a live chicken in the toilet and we closed it up," said Chong, who has been catching snakes for more than 20 years.
"Eventually when the snake appeared, the chicken made a noise and the maid called us and we moved in. And true enough, the python was there... two metres long."
Chong said the biggest snake he has ever been involved in catching was a seven-metre python, which was discovered after the tenants of a landed property and a big garden reported the repeated disappearance of their kittens.
"We investigated and in the garden we found this python sleeping after a good meal. We had to send several guys there because it was such a huge python. And with the bulging stomach, the kittens were still in there," he said.
Richard Wong, the general manager of Creative Pest Management, told AFP of one late night call his company received of a python nearly two metres long inside a 19th-storey apartment of a modern condominium.
Wong said the snake was curled up on the altar, which many Asian families have to worship or pay respects to the Buddha, gods or ancestors.
"The whole night the family did not dare sleep because they did not know whether there was another snake," Wong said, giving three options for its unlikely appearance.
"He (a family member) could have brought it in inside a carton box. Or it could have sneaked in floor by floor... the third option is up the piping," he said.
Wong said his company received between two and three requests a month to catch snakes, while Chong said Aardwolf answered distress calls at least once or twice a week.
Chong said harmless tree snakes were found 60 percent of the time, with pythons about 30 percent and black spitting cobras the remaining 10 percent.
But, reflecting the fear that grips many Singaporeans over snakes despite few reports of people being bitten, Chong said at least 80 percent of calls initially reported a cobra.
"It's always the cobra," Chong said as he chuckled. "They describe the snake with its hood open and hissing and all.
"All the funny colours and descriptions will come out and, when we go there, usually it's smaller than they say and it's just a harmless snake."
Chong and Wong said the cobras were killed, while the pythons and tree snakes were generally relocated to environments away from people's homes and offices.
Slithering menace leaves Singaporeans afraid to go to toilet