The weather tho! A mother has made a frightening discovery while packing her child’s school lunch after a baby brown snake was found hiding inside the lip of the lid of the lunch box.
The woman, from Hahndorf in the Adelaide Hills, was standing in her pantry and had already put an apple and two other snacks in the plastic box when she
noticed the tiny deadly eastern brown snake yesterday morning.
She quickly shut the lunch box and called a snake catcher. The dangerous close encounter has left local parents rattled.
“I’m terrified. I don’t want to find that in my daughter’s lunchbox when she comes home from school,” a mother said.
A father said: “I guess it’s one of those things we need to be aware of.” Rolly Burrell from Snake Catchers Adelaide told 9NEWS even though the reptile was only two weeks old it was still a dangerous threat to a young child. “Eastern brown snakes are the second deadliest land snake in the world. The baby snakes are as venomous as the adults,” Mr Burrell, who has been a snake catcher for 43 years, said.
“It could have been very dangerous for the child if he put his hand in there, he could have been bitten and probably wouldn’t have known he’d been bitten because it would have been a very soft bite.”
Mr Burrell said they were receiving 50 to 60 phone calls a day to report eastern brown snakes around the Adelaide area. “It’s been a very good (breeding) season, the weather has been fantastic … the weather is fine and the humidity is there and that’s what snakes need to hatch,” he said.
“Snakes don’t like hot conditions so they’ve got to find somewhere to cool off. Obviously he’s gone into the pantry … maybe he was looking for something to eat.”