James Ashe Antivenom Trust

Cobras often eat other snakes, and our spitters will definitely eat carrion.

James and I collected one that had found and eaten a very dead, poor little Egg-eater who had been murdered by a gardener (Watamu area) the day before. We were called to the scene when the gardener saw the smallish cobra come out to have a sniff at the body. The cobra had gone back into a hole before we got there.

The householder gave us a cup of tea and during that short time the cobra re-emerged and ate the smelly body. We caught the cobra and it regurgitated the Egg-eater in the bag. Ugh!!

On another occasion I was called to collect a large spitter which could not even bend in the middle because he had eaten a huge Puff adder that had just been killed by gardeners grass cutting.

A final example to turn the stomach yet again - we went to catch a cobra in a shallow sand pit. It smelled appalling and was very fat. It regurgitated an extremely decomposed young Monitor lizard that had been tossed away into the pit. That is what I could smell when handling the cobra.

On the other hand, it seems possible to me that Anton’s dead but life-like Puff adder actually had been killed by a Black mamba. You will recall that one was reported seen in the area.

I would expect a cobra killing a Puff adder to hang on. There would be a bit of a fight and lashing about. The Puff adder would probably end up looking dead.

A Black mamba would quickly give one or more bites and the Puff adder would die more peacefully, giving the lifelike appearance Anton described.

The Black mamba would not then want to eat the Puff adder, but a cobra wandering around later in the evening would be delighted to come across a free meal!

Here is more story-telling from our friend and colleague Anthony Childs:

“About seven years ago Masai in Amboseli took me to a cobra which they had killed in theprocess of eating a Puff adder.

What was amazing was the size of thePuff adder.  It was just over six feet long, and already halfway down an eight and a half foot long Ashe’s Spitting cobra’s throat! The Masai had killed the cobra halfway through its
meal.

In this case the cobra in question had not killed the Puff adder.  It had been killed the previous day and was decomposing.

All this shows is that Naja ashei likes Puff adders, even  decomposing ones.

I remember James Ashe telling me a story of being called out for a snake in someone’s garden.  When he got there, the snake in question had disappeared. On the lawn was a dead egg-eater (Dasypeltis medici lamuensis) that was badly decomposing.

James went in for a drink and a chat.  When leaving, he intended to remove the egg-eater and approached it with some confidence, only to find a cobra swallowing it!  James bagged the cobra and added it to his collection at Bio-Ken Snake Farm. Interestingly enough that type of cobra has now been elevated to a species now named after him - Naja ashei.”

This story is just in from our friend and colleague, Anthony Childs. Anton, as he likes to be called, and his wife Emma run Elsa’s Kopje Lodge near Meru in Kenya. He is also an Associate and Collector for Bio-Ken Snake Farm. Anton holds Silver Guide certification from the Kenya Professional Safari Guides Association, the highest level of recognition in the field and an honour shared by our own Royjan Taylor.

Anton has been collecting snakes for over 20 years in such wonderful locations as Amboseli National Park, Tsavo East and Tsavo West, and now in Meru.

Here’s his report to us:

“At approximately 6:00am on October 13, when the driver/guides were bringing their vehicles up to the Lodge for early morning game drives, they found a Puff adder (Bitis arietans) on the track to Reception. The Reception staff called me to investigate.

On closer inspection the snake, which appeared very much alive, was in fact found to be very dead! My immediate thoughts were that it had been run over, but there were no vehicle tracks over the snake’s tracks in the near vicinity. I left the snake where it was. Pondering over what actually did happen, I returned to the office.

The Lodge’s trainee manager/guide Andrew Pleasance, on his way up from the workshop, also came upon the dead Puff adder. With camera in hand, he snapped a few pictures before coming to talk with me about the snake.

I informed Andrew the snake was dead; that surprised him as it looked totally unscathed. He went back to investigate further. What he found was not really conclusive but there was a mention of another snake track on the road which would prove to be from the culprit.

The Puff adder when found was in perfect shape and showed no real sign of anything having started swallowing it. Rigamortis had not set in and the belly was extremely dark and soft, maybe indicating cytotoxin.

I suggested that Andrew cut off the head, bury it in sand and retrieve the skull at a later date. Bacteria and insects will do their job, and the head will come out clean. The cleaned skull can be used to teach our guides about the snake’s anatomy. It would help dispel the myth that pulling the fags out makes it possible to freehandle them.

Andrew duly cut off the Puff adder’s head and buried it in some sand near his quarters and threw the rest of the Puff adder into the bushes near where we initially found it.

We then didn’t give the dead snake another thought until about 8pm when we were called by the night askari (watchman) over the radio who said that there was a “Black mamba” (Dendroaspis polylepis) on the road where the Puff adder had been! By the time I got there the mamba had disappeared and could not be found, so we went back for dinner.

We were called again at about 11pm half way through the Rugby World Cup semi-final as the snake had returned. This time it hadn’t disappeared by the time we arrived, so we boxed the snake for relocation in the morning.

The mystery was resolved: there was no “Black mamba.” The Puff adder had been killed by an Ashe’s Spitting cobra (Naja ashei)! The cobra had probably been disturbed before it could start injesting its meal. It had hidden itself until the evening before coming back out to relocate its meal. The case of the cobra eating the adder was a matter of “snake eaters!”

It is not unusual that snakes eat snakes. Our experience in this case reinforces the fact that ‘Ashe’s Spitting cobra’ is particularly fond of Puff adders. We released the cobra a fair distance from the camp in an area where it is far less likely to come into conflict with humans.”

Photo by Andrew Pleasance

Anthony Childs sent in some photos - many thanks to him! - and among them was this wonderful shot of a Saw-Scale Viper, the same kind of snake who bit the worker in Shaba National Reserve last week. This snake, alive and well, is coiled into its typical defensive pre-strike position. By rubbing its coils against themselves, the snake produces the characteristic scraping sound that earned it the English common name it bears.

Saw-Scaled Viper (photo by Anthony Childs)

The good news is that the snakebite victim is now out of hospital, although he was to have returned for a final check yesterday. It’s a good thing that his co-workers and employers acted quickly and well to identify the snake and transport the patient to hospital. And it is very lucky that we were able to supply much-needed monovalent Echis antivenom to reduce his suffering.

The James Ashe Antivenom Trust needs your help to keep this valuable service available to victims of snakebite like the young fellow from Shaba. Please send your donation, cheque or money order, to us at Bio-Ken Snake Farm, P.O. Box 3, Watamu, Kenya. Your generosity may save a limb or a life!

Last night, my neighbour suddenly came running to say a snake was raiding one of his guinea fowl nests. He had gone out in the dark to take an egg for his supper and had “put in his hand and touched something soft.” Quickly shining his torch he discovered that it was a snake.  Perhaps he should have shone the torch first, and then he would have seen where he was putting his hand.  However, in this case he was lucky!

The snake turned out to be a beautiful red Egg-Eater who had just managed to swallow one of the hard-shelled eggs into her throat by the time I got there. Our local egg eaters usually are grey but we get the occasional red ones and we are always glad to see any of them.

The helpless snake regurgitated the egg when I picked her up. The egg didn’t break, as guinea fowl eggs have strong shells. My neighbour was able to rinse it off and add the egg to his meal!

Yesterday, a 24-year labourer who was lifting rocks was bitten on the hand by what was mistakenly thought to be a small Puff Adder in the Shaba National Reserve in Kenya.

Fortunately a photo was taken of the animal by Sue Heath, and the photo was sent to our colleague, Anthony Childs, who identified it as a fully grown Saw-scaled or Carpet Viper.

Then the phone calls and the e-mails started flying!

Arrangements were made to have the patient med-evac’d to Nairobi Hospital. The senior physician with experience in treating snakebite, Dr. Mauro Saio, was notified that he had a patient coming in with a confirmed viper bite. Two vials of James Ashe Antivenom Trust monovalent Echis antivenom was delivered to the doctor’s hand by Royjan Taylor’s mother, a long time resident of Nairobi.

Then we waited.

We heard nothing more until in the evening when Anton rang Royjan to say a blood test had shown that the patient’s blood was not coagulating. The bite was definitely serious! The venom destroys proper coagulation of the victim’s blood, and the bitten limb may develop necrosis and become susceptible to gangrene.

This is a good place to remind you - if you have been bitten by a snake, DO NOT USE A TOURNIQUET!

This morning the news is quite good. After the blood test, the patient had been given one vial of the monovalent antivenom and, 5 or 6 hours later a further test showed the blood coagulating nicely within 6-10 minutes.

As Dr. Saio told me by telephone, the patient is not completely out of the woods. The hand is badly swollen, kidney function needs to be monitored, and they must watch for a possible fresh surge of active venom from the bite site. Sometimes venom is trapped by the rapid swelling, only to find a way through to the body’s circulation later on.

Hopefully, thanks to James Ashe Antivenom Trust assistance and great teamwork all round, this patient will make a full recovery.

The patchy weather we are having - cold and rainy one day, sunny and brisk the next - is really bringing out the snakes.

Down at his end of Watamu, Royjan and staff are called to rescue or collect approximately one snake a day. At this end we have not had quite so many calls, but it is several a week. The last 24 hours have excelled themselves.

Yesterday evening I collected a medium sized File Snake that had just eaten something, possibly a toad, on a well-watered hotel lawn.

Cape File Snake (photo by Anthony Childs)

Early this morning we were contacted by an excited and overheated young man to come get a “really big” python from near the beach somewhere off the end of the tarmac road. I did not feel ready for a long trek so I gave a lift to the end of the tarmac to the young man and to our foreman, Boniface, who is particularly good at handling African Rock Pythons.

I then left them to it; thank goodness, because I had left the house forgetting I had a pot with enough water for a cup of coffee on the stove and it had boiled dry by the time I got home! Not all dangers are in the bush!

Boniface got back very upset, and he remained agitated for the rest of the day. It had indeed been a very large python…..but it had been killed 3 days ago.

Our young informant had been too scared to get too close in the first place and had not realised it was dead and bloated, so looked even bigger than normal. What a great shame!

Link-Marked Sand Snake (photo by Anthony Childs)

Boni had another call not much later to go across the road where he collected a small Link-Marked Sand Snake. It did not really make up for the loss of such a prize-size python, especially as our python house at Bio-Ken Snake Farm has been newly redecorated with murals of thorn trees and would have made the python a wonderful home!

Two baby snakes were brought in for identification - they were harmless, non-venomous House Snakes (Lamprophis fuliginosus).

We were delighted when the friends who had brought them decided to take them back for release in their garden where they had found them.

Or they might put them up in their ceiling to eat some of the geckos that plague well-lit houses in Kenya!

I am not sure it pays to be diligent.

At dusk yesterday, I went with a crowd of little children to their house not far away.  The children told me that a snake had gone in after chickens roosting inside the house. Unfortunately, having farm animals and livestock in the house is still a common practice in Kenya, as in much of Africa.

The house was a relatively new coral block building with corrugated iron roof, but there was no floor on the inside. There were even more children crowded at the front door and a small oil-lamp flickered in the bedroom the snake had entered.

There was one chicken on the bed, another in the far corner and a fierce black mother hen guarded a clutch of chicks in the corner under the bed. It was these chicks the snake had been after.

From the children’s description the snake must have been a cobra but it had sensibly retreated from the growing number of little human beings in the limited space. A thorough search of the entire house showed that the snake had made a clean getaway.

I did remember to spray my feet with insecticide when I got home but obviously didn’t do a good job of it because I am now nursing a neat nest of jigger eggs in the sole of my foot.

For more information about how to avoid being bitten by a snake, see our page “Simple Steps.”  You will discover there the role of livestock in the frequency of snakebite occurrence as well as how to avoid being bitten by a snake, and what to do as First Aid if you do receive a bite from a snake.

I am sporting a sticking plaster on my finger - my just desserts for an untidy capture.

I got an excited telephone call from my neighbour to tell me that there was a huge python in her garden, asking if I would come to collect the snake immediately. She assured me I would not be attacked by her herd of German Shepherds, who had all been shut away for their own safety.

I woke Ferry, our young top snake catcher. Together, armed only with torches, a towel and a big box, we went round to the neighbour’s house.

By then, the python was seriously annoyed because the husband had been preventing it from escaping into the thickets in his garden by holding its tail whenever it turned to run. The snake was coiled in an angrily defensive heap, tail held in a little knot (a sure sign of agitation) and exuding the very pungent alarm smell typical of pythons.

I flipped the towel over its head, plunged down and grabbed at neck and tail. It was not nearly as big as my neighbour had thought but that is normally the case. It was certainly big enough to have made a meal of her latest beautiful 4 month old puppy!

Ferry unwrapped a coil which the python had put round my arm and together we lifted the snake into the box. The lid went on, but it went on the wrong way round, easy to do by torchlight and in the heat of the moment.

Ferry quickly turned the lid right side around, but not quite quickly enough. The head and neck of the furious python slithered out. I grabbed the snake and stuffed it back inside the box. When I accidentally got my other hand too close to its mouth, the python gave a sideways snap and dug two of its long teeth into the side of my finger.

The teeth are so sharp that such bites tend to bleed dramatically. However, they generally look much worse than they are.

The night watchman who had first found the snake had been watching all this and was most impressed. He does not truly believe us that the snake is non-venomous, preferring rather to accept that I must have powerful protection to undertake such dangerous work.

Not only did I have a sore finger but I had landed on a bunch of stinging nettles so one leg was prickling uncomfortably. There is more to snake catching than merely grabbing the snake!

We have had to remove so many pythons recently that we must now arrange for a major relocation to an area where they will find food and not come into conflict with humans.