‘I was called out to find a snake in a BDSM sex dungeon’: The real lives of SA’s snake catchers and their wildest finds

From saving a child trapped in a room with an angry brown to catching a worm in a case of mistaken identity – take a look inside the wild lives of snake catchers.

What’s scarier than finding an unwelcome snake inside home? One that’s slithered into a sex dungeon.

Veteran snake catcher Rolly Burrell got the shock of his career when he walked into what had been described as a cellar only to find himself surrounded by whips and chains.

In his almost four decades in the business he has seen some strange things but nothing prepared him for this cellar.

“I went into a place where a couple where living and they had a snake that had dropped. I said to him, ‘where is it?’ And they said ‘it’s down the hallway’,” Mr Burrell said.

“I look down the hallway and all I could see was this lid and I said ‘I can’t see anything’ and they said ‘no, it’s down in the cellar’.”

Snake Catchers Adelaide Owner Rolly Burrell with an eastern brown snake. Picture: Emma Brasier

“I climbed down in the cellar and there was those ball things you put in your mouth, there was whips and chains and a big cross with straps on it and I’m down there thinking ‘my God I hope that door doesn’t shut’.

“I just wanted to get out of there I was scared. I was thinking about the bodies in the barrels and all that sort of stuff and I thought, ‘well jeez I don’t want to be tied up there getting whipped’.”

Mr Burrell said he was so fearful he ran upstairs, told the concerned couple he had caught the snake – he hadn’t – and left is a hurry without charging for the call out.

The Mount Compass man has been a reptile lover his whole life – even if his dad was not happy when he brought an eastern brown snake home from school in his backpack as a child – and has operated Snake Catchers Adelaide since 1984.

But despite countless trips to intensive care after bites, Mr Burrell said it is not the reptiles that make his job tough, it’s the people.

“Snakes are terrified of us, I can’t blame ‘em actually, everything we do on this planet is destroy,” he said.

Mr Burrell is one of many snake catchers keeping South Australians safe ahead of a dangerous summer for venomous snakes.

They are some of SA’s bravest, risking health and safety to help people and reptiles coexist – just not always in mutual spaces – and as the weather heats up they’re sharing their wildest catches.

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DAVE DIQUE – MURRAYLAND SNAKE CATCHER

Dave Dique – Murraylands Snake Catcher. Picture: Facebook

Discovering a child had been left in a bedroom with an angry 1.5m brown snake was one of the most frightening moments of Dave Dique’s career.

The Murraylands’ only licensed snake catcher had told the late-night caller to close the door and put a towel across it to keep the snake confined while he was en route.

“In between calling me and arriving, which was 20 minutes, the guy had seen the snake so he tried to have a crack at it with a shovel and dropped his tail off,” Mr Dique said.

“He made a dangerous animal. Absolutely lethal.

“He left his kid in the room, sat on the bed playing with the mobile phone.”

The 69-year-old, whose love of snakes and catching prowess started in his youth after an accidental catch in India, said respecting an animal or attacking it could be the difference between a safe encounter and a deadly one.

“Don’t just take the law in your hands. By doing that, if that snake had bitten the child it would have not held back on any venom, it would have given him the works,” the Murray Bridge man said.

“Bearing in mind that brown snakes are the second most venomous snake in the world.”

The Murraylands Snake Catcher caught the snake before anyone was hurt but the damage dealt meant it needed to be euthanised.

RUDY DELLA-FLORA – ADELAIDE SNAKE CATCHERS

Rudy Della-Flora from Adelaide Snake Catchers. Picture: Matt Loxton

Six snakes and eight ready to hatch made for a wild haul for Rudy Della-Flora.

He’s had some strange encounters in his 35 years in the industry but said a return call to a suburban compost bin was the most memorable.

“He saw the adult go in there, but he also saw it go out,” Mr Della-Flora said.

“So he’s plugged the bottom of the bin with sand.”

It turned out the snake had chosen the compost bin as an egg incubator.

“Couple of months later he started seeing the new babies coming out,” he said.

“I just up-ended the compost bin, tipped it all out, and sure enough there were five or six youngins coming out and eight eggs.

“I managed to get all the babies, put them in a container, and took the eggs away.

“I suggested to the guy, ‘Well now that I’ve emptied it, pour yourself a slab of concrete or some brick paving down and then put the compost bin on top of that’.”

Mr Della-Flora from Adelaide Snake Catchers said such sightings were common, describing them as a snake’s “bed and breakfast” with compost and rubbish attracting mice, which attracts snakes and clutter creating comfortable hiding places.

PETE BEST – SNAKE CATCHERS ADELAIDE

Pete Best with a rescued brown snake. Picture: Facebook

Pete Best started catching snakes when he worked in the Cooper Basin mines, but since working with Snake Catchers Adelaide he has had a few memorable calls.

“I’ve caught a worm,” Mr Best said.

“Girl moved out of home into a unit, she had glass panels down the side of a doorframe and for some reason she looked in and she saw this thing lifting off the ground, she thought it was a baby snake.

“I drove out 30 minutes from Bridgewater and attended. I looked in the window and thought, ‘Oh, you’ve got to be joking’.”

The catch was a quick task with the worm safely returned to the garden but Mr Best said the caller was a touch embarrassed by her mistake.