Copperhead snake spotted on track near Blackwood Park Rd Ferntree Gully
Walkers on a popular Ferntree Gully track got a shock when they spotted a huge snake enjoying the sun. And despite it being almost winter, a snake catcher says he is still getting daily call-outs to remove the slithering reptiles.
Outer East
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Visitors to a Ferntree Gully park got a shock when they spotted a huge copperhead snake near a popular walking track.
Filomena Barbatiello said she had just finished her walk around the track at the reserve on Blackwood Park Rd at 11am on Monday when a man warned her about the snake nearby.
“When I walked past him he shouted at me and said ‘Hey I would walk around if I was you’,” she said.
“And I said ‘Why is that’, I was walking on the path, and he said ‘There’s a snake there’.”
Ms Barbatiello said she walked the path all the time and had never seen a snake before.
“I said ‘show me’, I didn’t believe him, and then he showed me where it was,” she said.
“It was massive, it was pretty scary.”
Ms Barbatiello said the man told her he had alerted Knox Council about the snake.
She also shared a post on the Ferntree Gully Noticeboard Facebook page to alert visitors to the reserve of the “bloody massive” snake.
“I see a lot of families go there, kids on bikes, and lot of dogs,” Ms Barbatiello said.
Although she was unsure, Ms Barbatiello said many people on the post said they believed it was a copperhead snake.
Snake Catcher Victoria’s Barry Goldsmith said he normally wouldn’t remove snakes from walking paths.
“That’s where you want them as opposed to being in your bedroom or bathrooms,” he said.
He said it was coming up to the end of snake season, but he expected to see a flurry of action before winter started, where the snakes had last mating sessions, before having their babies in spring.
Mr Goldsmith said he was still receiving daily calls from people wanting snakes removed.
He said Ferntree Gully was a fairly common place for snakes to be spotted and he had also recently received a call from someone in Rowville.
He said the snake in Ferntree Gully was likely a copperhead, as they were most common in the area.
Knox Council city development director Matt Kelleher said snakes were only handled by professional snake catchers and the council did not manage their collection.
“As snakes are protected animals, they will only be removed if they are posing a community safety issue,” he said.
“If a snake sighting is reported to council and is deemed to be posing a risk, the report will be referred to a professional snake catcher or the Department of Environment, Land, Water & Planning (DELWP) to remove the snake to a safe location for both the snake and the community.”
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