Advertisement

Australian floods bring out the snakes

ROCKHAMPTON, Australia, Jan. 8 (UPI) -- Snakes and crocodiles have been joining humans in the search for higher ground in flooded areas in northeastern Australia, authorities said.

Kevin Lucas, the safety officer at the Rockhampton airport, told The Australian he and other employees have disposed of 40 snakes. Most were brown snakes, the world's second-deadliest land snake, but one appeared to be a taipan, the deadliest.

Advertisement

"They're everywhere. They've all been washed down the system and this is where they've ended up," he said. "One of them looked like the Loch Ness Monster."

Ken Winkel, head of the Australian Venom Research Unit, told Time magazine brown snakes have less fear of people and are more aggressive. Taipan bites, on the other hand, are more likely to be fatal because of their long fangs.

Dr. David French of Rockhampton told The Courier-Mail of Brisbane this week that a friend, Bob Stewart, was holding out in a house on stilts outside of town.

"He's got brown snakes in the water under his floorboards," French said. "He won't go anywhere in his house without a four-foot piece of poly pipe to bat away the snakes."

Advertisement

Noel Preece, an environmental scientist who has studied the effects of previous Queensland floods, said it could take months for equilibrium to return. He told the Australian there could be a "plague of rats" when the waters recede.

Latest Headlines