A snake catcher had to break through a wall to catch a 6-foot black mamba that had been lurking in a South African home for several weeks.
Nick Evans — who provides a snake removal service in South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal province — had a call about the black mamba slithering around a home in the Clermont area of Greater Durban.
Black mambas are highly venomous and one of Africa's deadliest snakes. They usually avoid humans, but a bite is generally fatal if left untreated.
When Evans arrived at the home, he could see the snake's head at the top of a very high wall, he said in a Facebook post. As the snake catcher climbed up the wall with a ladder, however, he noticed a hole right below the snake's body—he realized the snake had been living inside it. The venomous snakes often slither into homes looking for dark places to hide.
"The residents told me, "Break the wall". They were sick of this snake being there," Evans said on Facebook.
The homeowners had been living with the snake for several weeks at this point, he said.
The snake catcher reached over the top of the wall and recorded a video of the mamba on his phone to locate its exact hiding place.
"I got my hammer and chisel and started hammering away. Goodness me were these blocks strong...I hammered away, and sweated away, on my ladder. It was a hot and humid room," Evans said on Facebook.
Eventually, the snake catcher broke through the wall and the serpent darted up to the top of the wall.
"I've got it now, I thought, excitedly. I shouldn't have got my hopes up. It went up, came out, and went down a hole, down the blocks, next to it, in a flash. I couldn't do anything," he said. "Now we had to break another hole."
The snake catcher then had to repeat the process, chiseling away at the wall.
"Again, I struggled to get through. When I eventually did, the mamba shot up again, much to the panic of the residents. This time, however, it moved to my left, to the sidewall, not a good move on its behalf," he said.
Finally, Evans managed to grab the snake using tongs. He held the mamba's body while he pulled the head towards him, and grabbed it with his hand.
"I was relieved that was over, although even more so when I was back on the ground. That was hard work! I was there for about an hour and a half," he said.
At a length of about 6 feet, the mamba was not very long, the snake catcher said. Black mambas are one of the longest snakes in Africa. They can grow to up to 14 feet, though the average is around 8 feet.
In the Facebook post, the snake catcher said he is enjoying the flurry of black mamba calls he has gotten this week. In a previous Facebook post, Evans said he had not been receiving as many calls as usual.
When Evans catches a snake he releases it back into the wild, away from people.
