Southwest Queensland faces snake alert warning

Southwest Queensland snake experts are asking everyone to keep alert.

A healthy Eastern Brown snake. Picture: Samuel Hunt

TIS THE season, where snake sightings spike in southwest Queensland, and snake experts are asking everyone to keep alert.

Boobook Senior Ecologist Richard Johnson said they have already had several calls to remove snakes from peoples premises.

The most encountered species in the region are Eastern Brown snakes, which are most common in Roma, and the Western Brown snake, which is found around St George and Mitchell West.

Mr Johnson assures that both snake's are equally as dangerous.

"There bite is lethal and if it was an untreated full bite it would likely prove fatal,” he said.

"Any snake bite should be treated as a medical emergency.”

Brown snakes if cornered, will adopt a threatening posture where they will rear up the forward part of their body into a S shape, if a person or animal approaches them after that they will quite often strike as a warning.

"You just need be snake aware, and just keep an eye out for that kind of thing when you're out and about,” he said.

If you are thinking about your own home and wanting to make it less attractive to snakes, Mr Johnson recommends keeping your grass short, and to reduce the amount of material lying around like roofing iron and timber.

"If you keep poultry, or pet birds try to keep that area as clean as you can and reduce the number of mice, because mice are a big attractant for snakes,” he said.

"There is nothing like a food source such as an aviary that has got a lot of mice living in it, which gives that snake a reason to hang around.”

For snake removal help contact Boobook on [phone].

Originally published as Southwest Queensland faces snake alert warning