Adelaide snake catcher Rolly Burrell’s warning over venomous brown snakes caught in suburban homes

An Adelaide snake catcher run off his feet with distress calls of snakes tells where venomous reptiles are being caught in suburban streets.

An Adelaide snake catcher being slammed with up to 170 call outs a day warns the dangerous reptiles are found right across the city from Jetty Road to the Adelaide CBD.

Highly venomous eastern browns and the red-bellied black snake are the most common reptiles Rolly Burrell’s 20 staff at Adelaide Snake Catchers are removing from homes and businesses across the state as they get more active in warmer weather.

“We had one in a shoe last week in Seaview Downs, (the homeowner) was about to go and play golf and it was in his shoe,” the experienced herpetologist says.

“A while back there was this poor old chap in a nursing home who said there’s a snake under my bed and no one believed him, we went there a day later and there was a snake in his slipper, a red bellied, it’s among the most venomous.”

Adelaide snake catcher Rolly Burrell with an eastern brown snake.

An eastern brown snake inside a home at Golden Grove this week. Picture: Snake Catchers Adelaide

In the past few weeks, Mr Burrell’s catchers have removed a young red-bellied black snake from a Pages Flat home after it slid past a homeowner sitting down knitting during the late afternoon, an eastern brown snake from inside a Golden Grove house and another from a Coromandel East roof.

He admits to taking more care in removals after many snake bites over the years.

“I’ve had shitloads, I’ve been bitten so many times I’ve lost count, at 35 I was up to about 70 bites and now I’m 65 years old, I just bandage myself up and go to hospital… I’ve been in intensive care a few times,” he said.

Snakes are widespread across Adelaide suburbs after travelling through stormwater drains or parks, Mr Burrell telling how a few years ago a snake managed to get into an Adelaide man’s car during a fishing trip.

The keen fisherman then accidentally closed the snake in the car door so its head was free to try and bite passers-by when he stopped at shops along Jetty Road, Glenelg.

Many snakes are each year removed from Adelaide Airport and Mr Burrell said there was a call out yesterday to a Netherby business.

“They had thrown a blanket over ‘the snake’ and it turned out to be a skink,” he said, adding that over the years there have been numerous false alarms including one woman who chopped up a rubber snake in a toy box.

Another snake found in Salisbury. Picture: Snake Catchers Adelaide

This week one of Mr Burrell’s business videos showing a 2kg mulga brown snake being removed from a four-wheel-drive in the Riverland went viral.

Karl Hillyard, the Environment Department’s principal ecologist wildlife management, said the two main venomous snakes being found as they became more active during Spring are eastern browns and red-bellied black snakes, both venomous and both protected species.

He warned South Australians to call in the professionals if they found snakes at their homes adding that they are far more prevalent than people realised.

“It wouldn’t be unheard of them to be in all parts of Adelaide where there are parks and gardens or waterways nearby…. Be aware and realise they are doing a great job controlling things like rats and mice,” Mr Hillyard said.

Originally published as Adelaide snake catcher Rolly Burrell’s warning over venomous brown snakes caught in suburban homes