The Trouble with Snake Translocations:
Help or Hindrance?
Just what happens when snakes are relocated? Janne Torkkola - a zoology/
genetics graduate who runs a snake removal service and a wildlife science podcast in
Brisbane – is concerned that often there is no happy ending.
R
udyard Kipling (see
opposite page) evidently
disliked snakes, like many
of his era and before. Snakes
were seen not only as danger-
ous, venomous, marauding
villains, but also as a portent of
evil; the Devil’s own infiltrator
lurking in the Garden - one who
knows our weaknesses and
tempts us into our sinful demise.
While religions like Hinduism and
Buddhism included powerful,
even benevolent serpent gods
(such as the Nagas, now the
namesake of the Naja genus of
cobras), the perception of snakes
in Western culture is almost
universally negative. Here in
Australia, where some of the
world’s most venomous snakes
are regular backyard visitors,
prevailing attitudes are often no
different. It’s still common to hear
the old adage that, “A good
snake is a dead snake!”, and
urban legends persist – such as
the possibility of pythons and
brown snakes interbreeding to
form dangerous hybrids, despite
these taxa being in separate
families (Pythonidae and
Elapidae), and therefore, in some
senses, as likely as a cross
between a cat and a dog to
produce viable offspring.
Snakes are a hugely persecuted
but equally ecologically important
clade; they have adapted with
varying degrees of success to
human-modified environments.
Some snake fanatics, like myself,
wind up in a career involving
snake relocation; the safe
capture and removal of snakes
posing a risk to people, pets, or in
the case of rescues, themselves.
Following a quick health assess-
ment, we then aim to find suitable
habitat for release within their
own ecosystem, all working
under local and federal wildlife
and safety legislation.
After nearly five years of manag-
ing a snake removal service, I still
believe fauna translocation can
be useful for both people and
ecosystems. But a number of
literature reviews on the subject
and a plethora of published
studies have cast doubt on the
suitability of translocation as a
management tool.
In the case of snakes, transloca-
tions are frequently employed to
mitigate threats involved in
wildlife interactions, often in
urban areas. In my own area of
Brisbane, by far the majority of
calls are for non-venomous
Carpet Pythons. Looking at some
of my own data, from 1 July 2017
to 18 April 2018, there were a
total of 181 Carpet Python
(Morelia spilota) captures,
followed by 22 Common Tree
Snakes (Dendrelaphis
punctulata) and 21 Eastern
Brown Snakes (Pseudonaja
textilis). After these comes an
assortment of minor players; four
Yellow-faced Whip Snakes
(Demansia psammophis), three
Red-bellied Black Snakes
(Pseudechis poriphyriacus), three
Brown Tree Snakes (Boiga
irregularis), and a few others, for
a total of 38 venomous and 206
non-venomous snakes. The non-
venomous species are only
moved if there’s a genuine threat;
if there are pets at risk on the
property, if they’re indoors, or if
they’re stuck somewhere people
need access to (like cars, offices,
or work sites). Handling is,
ideally, done with an aim to
minimise stress where possible
and avoid unnecessary agitation.
Moving wildlife is always a
troublesome prospect, as most
species are locally adapted to
their environments, and so are
populations and individuals. For
translocated animals, environ-
mental conditions are hardly
likely to be exactly the same at
the release site, thus local
adaptations may no longer be
appropriate, or could even
become detrimental. The extent
to which we’re interfering with
locally-adapted snakes is difficult
Left: the author wrangles an Eastern Brown Snake (Pseudonaja
textilis).
Right: Eastern Brown Snakes comprise the majority of venomous
snakes encountered during call-outs in the Brisbane area.
All images courtesy of Janne Torkkola.