The Boomslang

Young Male Boomslang

The boomslang or tree snake is the most venomous and most feared of the Zimbabwean back fanged snakes. This is because it is also the most commonly seen and can grow to well over one and a half metres long. If threatened it will puff up its throat and body and this combined with its size, the large scales, big round eyes and speed of movement make it very intimidating. For those in the know, its poison effects the blood clotting mechanism and death is usually as a result of blood loss. The anti-venom is available from reserves kept in South Africa and this in itself is of grave concern to the Zimbabwean snake catcher. Fortunately bites are rare and mostly confined to snake catchers, handlers or those silly people who decide to try and kill them. The snake catchers that I have known to take a nip from Boomslang's have all survived due to its propensity towards saving its venom and giving warning or 'dry' bites. Every one of them will also tell you that it was their own lack of caution that led to the bite. Why is this snake so common ? Its simply the fact that it does raid nests for fledglings and various bird species highlight its existence to other creatures by chattering and even mobbing it.

They say that knowing a snakes habits are what makes a snake catcher good at their hobby and for me the boomslang was my most common catch. After noticing that when disturbed, most boomslang's would try to escape by going to the highest point in the tree (not rocket science as they are called tree snakes ) . I would equip myself with a snake bag and a pair of heavy duty welding gloves and climb to the highest point and wait whilst getting the often resident crowd to rattle the lower branches. Nine out of ten times the snake would come right up to me. I would grab it as close to the head as possible and, whilst clinging precariously from often very thin branches, unwrap the tail and bag the snake.  That tail is really a nuisance and is used to hold onto branches with a tenacity that was often very frustrating.
I would not have caught in excess of 500 of these if it wasn't for a new trick that I found. I was regularly called out to catch Boomslang's in hedges and for a very frustrating period would fail to find the snake in nine out of ten instances. And even after spotting some, would inexplicably lose them. The few I did catch were around midday and would follow my theory of 'highest point', moving out of the hedge into adjoining trees. Then the moment of break through came as I watched a green male boomslang disappear before my eyes. Closer inspection showed that the corner post pipe for the fence was hidden at the back of the stem of the bush and I could only surmise that the boomslang had gone into hiding in the fence post. I banged the post, prodded the holes and still could not here or see it. After returning home and reading through some of the old snake books I came to a passage that talked about putting petrol down termite mounds to get snakes to leave them. I went back to the fence post armed with a syringe and my trusty welding gloves and gave it a little spray. The result was almost instantaneous but not what I expected. There was a loud hissing and scraping from inside the pole and out came a large brown female boomslang. I just had time to close my hand and pull her out when out popped the green male. I just had time to catch that one with my other hand and then faced the bagging problem. The Person who had called me was delighted as they had only ever seen the green one. They were even more impressed when, after putting petrol down all the fence pipes, I had come up with another three - two green males and a much rarer dark olive one commonly referred to as a black boomslang. What a result - five lovely specimens caught from one garden ! I returned home now worrying about the possible effects of the petrol on the snakes. I washed them down and then took them to the snake park where we monitored them. They showed no ill effect from the petrol dowsing and after a month and several chameleons we then released them. Several months later I decided to test this theory in a high density built up area near a school with no reported sitings of snakes and on a late afternoon went along hedgerows hitting and shaking the hedges following it with a petrol treatment on the fence posts. Two hours later I had to call it a day having bagged 31 boomslangs. They made a great show at the snake park for the visitors and we had to go further a field to find suitable release sites when it came time to set them free. Of note here is that after trying different methods a syringe was definately the best method of petrol dispursal as the spray filled the air quicker and I believe this irritated the snakes keen senses making them come out quicker than just pouring the fuel in.