08/10/2025
WHERE ARE YOU GOING TO RELEASE IT?
This is one of the most common questions we get.
And honestly, it’s one the hardest parts of what we do.
Our local venomous snakes - especially Dugites - have adapted really well to urban environments.
This creates multiple problems.
The obvious one, being that the snakes end up getting to close to humans and lets etc.
The other big problem, is where do we release it?
Sometimes, that is easy. There’s a big bush reserve not too far away, and it isn’t surrounded by houses or human development.
A lot of the time, like in this case, it becomes quite tricky.
With only small nature corridors still existing, and those being surrounded by housing developments on all sides, where is the best place to release this snake?
And the next question you will ask, is why cant we just take 10kms away to some bush away from people?
This is where understanding how our native animals live comes into play.
Snakes in general have home ranges or ‘territories’. These could be internally a 3km radius from any given point. Taking the snake away from the territory, puts it at greater risk.
Now it doesn’t know where the good hidey holes, food trails, or water sources are.
If it gets lost, it will be more susceptible to predators, or won’t be able to find water or food, or get too close to humans that aren’t so caring.
In fact, the mortality rate of translocated snakes, is actually quite high.
This is why we take great care when releasing snakes back into the wild. THIS is the hard part. We do absolutely everything we can, to make sure the snake has the absolute best chance of surviving.
This could mean releasing the snake the next day, if we happen to catch it in a cold evening. It’s better to release a snake when it has a chance to warm up quickly, rather than be cold and disorientated at night.
It may mean releasing it a little further away than we would like, but still close enough and in dense enough bush, that it still has a good chance.
Everything we do is about conservation and education, and the reality is, sometimes it may be in vain. Every snake we release, we cannot follow up on, so we can only assume everything has gone well.
I like to believe it does, anyway.
Plead enjoy this absolutely stunning Dugite, and I hope you have gotten a bit more insight into what part of our job entails.
