Originally distributed March 2009
I can’t tell you how many times I heard that before I left for Swaziland, especially from one particular uncle. Well, hold onto your hats. You won’t believe what I’ve been doing lately. Basically, I’ve been radio tracking black mambas for the past 7 weeks.
I didn’t know I would be tracking black mambas when I interviewed for or accepted the job. I did find out before I left for Swaziland though and decided that was one little tidbit of info I’d keep to myself…until after the project was over and I was still alive and well to tell about it. Many of you are worrying enough as it is. You didn’t need to know I was purposely following and approaching one of the deadliest snakes in the world.
In Swaziland they grow lots of sugar cane. The sugar cane attracts rodents and the rodents attract snakes. The snakes are dangerous to the people who have to work in the sugar cane fields. So there’s a couple in Swaziland who dedicate part of their time to responding to calls about venomous snakes in their homes, schools, sugar cane fields, etc. They capture the snakes and provide them refuge. Over time they began to wonder what would happen if they were to re-release the snakes in protected areas, like nature reserves. Would the snakes stay there and make themselves at home, or would they leave and try to return to their previous territories? To find out they partnered with animal tracking experts, namely the science director at All Out Africa, and snake biologists to release several snakes in a particular park and follow them around to find out where they would go.
Generally, very little is known about black mambas, but I can happily confirm firsthand now that they are not aggressive snakes. If they were, I would’ve been bitten a long time ago, because sometimes we approached to within striking distance of the snakes. Not on purpose, mind you.
Roughly 10 snakes were used in the study. Several were resident to the area either within or surrounding Nisela Nature Reserve, where the study took place. The rest were captured from many km away and translocated to Nisela. A veterinarian operated on them to insert the radio transmitters. After a couple days of recuperation the snakes were released and our work began.
At first the snakes didn’t move much. Some would move 50-100m in a day but that was it. We figure they were still healing from surgery. But once they were well again, some of them started trekking around the park.
We used two types of transmitters, because each researcher brought their own to the project. Unfortunately, within 10 days of release one set of transmitters failed and we lost track of all 5 of those snakes. So for the last 6wks we were only following 5 snakes. During that time, 3 of the 5 shed and we actually saw one slithering around in a bush with skin coming off. I disturbed one while it was eating a rat—total accident as I didn’t know exactly where the snake was until it was thrashing around in the grass regurgitating the rat because I was standing so close to it at the time. We also followed one from one end of the park to the other as it headed toward the housing area and later had to be recaptured and released because it perched itself on the roof of one of the beehive huts, where park visitors stay.
The snake that I disturbed had a sad demise. It had originally been captured near some rat cages at the park, where they breed rats to feed to their captive snake collection. When we released it we put it back in the same general area. Eventually, it returned to the rat cage area. The rat I saw it eating was an escapee though, the snake had not gotten it from the cage. But one day the snake was too tempted. It slithered in to one of the cages and killed several rats. The survivors, however, got revenge and killed the mamba. They bit it to death, and once it was dead they bit most of its head off. Gruesome indeed.
I’m sure you have lots of questions so I’ll do my best to answer them when I return from the field in two weeks. We’re now tracking bats though and we do it from a vehicle so it’s very tame. Yes, we had a few close calls while tracking the snakes. We were mandated to try to spot the snakes as often as possible so that meant we had to approach them pretty closely. At times we were practically on top of them. We often had to go through tall grass to get to where they were and that was hair-raising. One time we had a snake strike at us but it was at least 10ft away at the time and it didn’t strike in our direction. The snake felt our vibrations as we approached so it rose up and struck behind it, while we were actually to the side. But it was still scary. My partner, Mduduzi, had just spotted it in the grass and was pointing it out to me. That’s when it rose up and struck. I was very grateful for his extraordinary ability to spot snakes at such distances. I managed to spot several snakes during our tracking as well. It was cool to consciously experience how you can develop a search image.
Mduduzi and I never captured any of the mambas ourselves. Several staff at the snake park have special training to capture and handle them. But I did hold the body of one once while the snake park staff held its head to administer medicine in its mouth for an injury it had. So yes, I have held a black mamba, though not entirely by myself.
You’ll probably hear more about this project later in the year. But for now, you’ll be hearing about my work with more benign creatures—bats, storks and possibly vultures.
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