Greetings community, friends, suppawters and followers. This is a rescue from a few weeks ago that I initially did not want to post on our page, as it doesn't have a happy ending, but I feel that this needs to be voiced.
I received a call regarding a snake on a property and the caller identified the snake as a Cape Cobra. On arrival, I could see the snake was out in the open and not even trying to get away with all the commotion and movements around him, which seemed a bit odd to me.
As I approached him, I immediately saw why he wasn't trying to get away. He was in too much pain, and felt the need to stand his ground and defend himself from what hurt him.
As you'll see in the video, I did not want to catch him the normal way as he had sustained a bad injury on his lower spine, so I wanted to avoid catching him by the tail as I normally would. I tried to pin his head down, and hold him behind his head so that I could examine his injury to determine which vet I was going to race him to.
The first attempt of pinning him down didn't go as planned. He just bit the back of my hook stick, and then he let go. The second time, he bit the back of my hook stick again, only this time he would not let go. This allowed me to safely hold him behind his head, and take him to a flat surface to get him to let go of the hook stick so that I could put him in a tub to take to one of the vets we use, as he unfortunately would not need any special care.
The injury he sustained was too severe to be treated and sadly I made the call to have him euthanized. After I had placed him in a tub, the caller proudly told me that they watched as their dog attacked the snake. I asked them if they had tried to get their dog away from the snake, to which they replied "no, we just stood and watched".
I told them that there is a big shortage of antivenom in our country, and if their dog got bit, he would have died. They however, did not seem to fazed about the news.
This incident basically falls
Greetings community, friends, suppawters and followers. We received a call about a snake that was seen going underneath a car, and then seemingly made his way up into the engine compartment. Nobody wanted to go near the car, let alone drive home as it was just about time for everyone to leave work.
On arrival, I got the keys for the car from the owner of the car so that I could get the bonnet open and start the search for the snake. Checking all the usual spots from the top, I couldn't see any snake, so an underneath view and search was the next step. Still no snake in site, and that's when I checked the other usual spot where snakes like to go hide. With it being a very hot day, this snake was just looking for a cool spot to chill out before moving on.
True as Bob, there Mr Cape Cobra was hiding, wrapped around the coil of the shock absorber. I don't trust the gloves anymore, but the only way to get the snake out was by using my hands. With the glove on, I was just hoping that the snake doesn't get too upset with me prodding him, that he would bite the glove.
After a few minutes of trying to get the snake to unwrap himself from the coil into a position that would make it possible for me to get him out safely and without injuring him, he finally got fed up with me poking at him, and tried to make his way back to the underside of the engine. It gave me the perfect opportunity to get hold of him, and remove him from where he was hiding.
I much prefer to catch any snake other than a Puffadder after getting a second bite from one when he bit right through the glove, but I still attend to calls when it comes to Puffadders.
As I've said before in my previous posts, snakes play a very important role in our ecosystem. They help to control the number of rodents like mice, rats and squirrels. As you know, if these rodents invade your house, they can cause serious damage as they will chew on just about anything. If they chew on electrical cables, it could start a fire
Greetings community, friends, suppawters and followers. I'm starting to think that Cobras aren't that good at estimating sizes, as this is not the first time we respond to a call like this.
Securite control room contacted us regarding a snake on a property that the owner of the house wanted caught and relocated. But what we didn't know that the snake was actually stuck in chicken wire.
When I approached the snake, he hood up, opening his mouth and striking at me as he was terrified and couldn't escape, so I covered his head with a pillowcase before beginning with rescue task at hand. At first touch, he tensed up but then completely relaxed, almost as if he knew that I was there to help.
Well, after carefully cutting the mesh and getting him free, he had two wounds from the mesh that cut into him while he was trying to free himself, and the struggle just made it worse. So after containing the snake, I phoned our vet and asked if I can bring the snake in for x-rays as I was not sure if he had any severe spinal injury.
Thankfully nothing broken (x-rays will be in the comment section) but slight deep tissue injury. He was given pain medication and some antibiotics, and off home it was. At home we washed his wounds that will fully recover, applied some wound treatment ointment, and placed him in an enclosure as he needed more medication the next day. He'll have some scaring on his body, but apparently that makes the snake more bad-ass, so he'll have the ladies falling over each other.
As I've said before in my previous posts, snakes play a very important role in our ecosystem. They help to control the number of rodents like mice, rats and squirrels. As you know, if these rodents invade your house, they can cause serious damage as they will chew on just about anything. If they chew on electrical cables, it could start a fire and you stand the risk of your house burning down.
Please do not try to harm or kill a snake whenever you cross paths with one, but rather give
Greetings community, friends, suppawters and followers. We have posted this video before, but the post was removed for some reason, so we decided to post it again, and hopefully it will stay. The video is a bit long, just over 12 minutes, but we decided to record this rescue from the start and up until this snake was free again to be released back into the wild. It is definitely worth the watch, but you can fast forward up to the 7 minute mark if you want to see how the snake was removed from the pipe.
We were called by Habitat Mature Tree Nursery regarding a snake that seemed a hiding spot in one of the irrigation pipes. Well, the pipe turned out to be a bit too narrow for the snake to exit again, so he got stuck. The snake in the video is a Cape Cobra.
As you'll see in the video, I first had to get rid of the nozzle point that was obstructing the snake from moving forward or backwards as it would have most likely caused injuries to the snake. Once that was removed, I started to cut away at the pipe, carefully taking thin layers off, like you would peel a potato.
Finally the pipe could be cut apart without causing any harm to the snake, and with a bit of cooking oil, we were able to slide the pipe down, and free the trapped snake.
Just a little bit of information about a Cape Cobra. Cape Cobras, just like any other cobra can be dangerous in certain situations. They are skittish snakes, and they prefer to avoid any confrontation with humans. Most times, they will try to get away as fast as possible, or try and hide away in the closest safe spot they can find.
But there are times where it is not always possible for the snake to get away fast enough, and that is when they will put up an impressive display to warn us or a predator to stay away. Of course the first thing they do is lift their upper body and inflate the skin around their neck, showing off their characteristic hood display. They will also open their mouths and do a mock charge/strike to intimidate/
Greetings community, friends, suppawters and followers. Here is a rescue/relocation that we don't often get called for, hence why I decided to take a video and just give a bit of information regarding these awesome spiders.
My aunt is terrified of spiders and earlier this afternoon, one decided to pay her a visit in her room. The spider in question: The Huntsman spider also known as a rain spider. Although their size can intimidate people, these spiders are actually pretty much harmless. Yes, they can deliver a painful bite that might cause a bit of swelling but other than that, they are very docile spiders with bites occurring only in self-defense.
This spider was an easy catch, but the release was the funny part. Trying to get her out the jar with one hand proved a bit tricky, but once she came out, she chose to run up my leg instead of running into the bush that was right in front of her. You'll see in the video that I tried to coax her towards the bush a few times, but she found my shoes and ankle more inviting.
Then she finally realized that my legs and shoes was not the ideal area to hang around, and ran towards the bush that I tried to guide her towards at the beginning. I'm hoping that with this video, people will see that spiders don't just bite or attack, even after being poked a few times. It's all about how gentle you are with the spider.
They are active hunting spiders and do not make a web to catch their meals like other spiders do. They can run pretty fast which helps when it comes to catching moths, butterflies, cockroaches, small lizards or geckos and other insects.
I will include a photo of the female's nest in the comment section just to show you what it looks like. The egg sacks varying in different sizes can contain well over 100 eggs with some egg sacks carrying about 400 eggs.
Anyway, that's our story for the day. Hope you found the post informative.
Thank you for all of your support and the following of our rescues. Without you no
Greetings community, friends, suppawters and followers. We received a call last night just after 21:00 requesting us to catch a Puffadder that was found in the bedroom. Once I had caught the snake, and contained the snake, he gave off a bit of a hiss as he was not happy with me handling him. Soon as he made that sound, the lady said she heard the exact same sound the previous night near her bedside table, but thought nothing of it. Now there is nothing special about this capture, but I felt it necessary.
Since the beginning of Summer, 99% of snake calls that came in were Puffadders. Most calls coming from Somerset West, but calls coming from Gordon's Bay, Sir Lowry's and Strand. This has been the most Puffadders I've caught and removed from homes and gardens in the past 6 years. Not entirely sure what the reasons for the high numbers of Puffies, but we would like to take this opportunity to just give everyone a heads-up.
Puffadders can camouflage themselves incredibly well between shrubs and bushes and they are not that likely to move away like other snakes. These snakes will rather rely on their ability to blend in with their environment and hope they are not found. Please take this word of caution to heart, especially if you or have someone working in your garden.
They are mostly nocturnal, and rarely hunt prey actively, instead these snakes prefer to ambush their prey as it passes by. Their diet includes mammals, birds, amphibians, and lizards.
Although these snakes may seem like slow-moving and lazy snakes, they are highly defensive when they feel threatened and can make incredibly fast biting attacks, sometimes biting 2 or 3 times with one strike. They are one of the fastest striking snakes in the world, surpassed only by the Australian Death Adder. It can strike within 0.25 of a second both forward and to the side.
When disturbed the snake will coil into a defensive S-shaped posture enabling them to strike a distance of 2 thirds of their body lengt
Greetings community, friends, suppawters and followers. It has been a while since we've posted a rescue, but we had our hands full with life. However this rescue deserves a same day post.
Our morning started off bright and early with a call for help regarding a Duiker that was stuck in a gate. So, off we go to do what we do best asking the home owner to cover her head with a towel or blanket to reduce any stress as these creatures die very easily from stress or shock. On arrival, one of the Spca's inspectors was already on scene waiting for us to arrive as this rescue was going to be a teamwork effort.
The one neighbor brought some cottonwool so that I could put it in her ears to block out as much sound as possible while keeping her head covered as the homeowner, without any hesitation had no issue with cutting his gate so that we could free this poor critter. Holding her down firmly as the grinder would obviously make a noise that could make the duiker stress even more and go into capture shock, I put my head down on her head and within seconds, the gate was cut and we could free the Duiker.
A quick field assessment showed no visible serious injuries other than some scratches and scrapes from the gate when she tried to free herself. She was loaded into the Spca vehicle to be taken to the vet and have a proper assessment done. Spca will keep us up to date as to what the outcome is and when she will be able to be released back into the area where she was found.
A massive thank you to the homeowner for his selfless act of not even thinking twice to cut the gate so that the Duiker could be saved. You sir, are a true animal rescue hero. A huge thank you to everyone that was there and helped keep the duiker calm until we arrived on scene.
Thank you for all of your support and the following of our rescues. Without you none of this would be possible.
If you would like to aid or support us in what we are doing to help cover fuel, animal food supplies, vet bills and
Howzit community, friends, suppawters and followers. Here is another update for those following the story of Zeus.
But for those that doesn't know, I'll recap.
Zeus was confiscated from terrible conditions and suspected dog fighting. Most dogs that are used for dog fighting, are Pit Bulls, giving this breed a very bad reputation. Yes, they are a "power breed" and yes, they can be working dogs. They are incredibly smart. But they can also be goofy, silly, playful, loving and protective over their family.
In most dog fighting cases, the dogs used for those fights are put to sleep without doing an assessment to see if the dog can't be re-homed to live a better life. And in some of those cases I would agree with having the dog put to sleep. Some of those dogs can be rehabilitated and re-homed, and it has been done before.
Now Zeus is my first suspected dog fighting patient that I personally am busy nursing and rehabilitating. When we first confiscated him, he was tied down with a very thick chain, badly wounded and emaciated which points to him being a 'bait dog'. After taking him to incredible team at Teva Vet, his wounds were cleaned, got a few stitches across his face and shoulder and was put on a 2 course antibiotics to fight off any secondary infection.
His wounds are healing at a fast pace, and slowly but surely he is picking up weight as he is on a Hills large breed puppy food diet, and he absolutely loves droëwors, so I go get him plenty of that. But he still needs to pick up a significant amount of weight to be at a suitable weight. Now as you'll see in the video, he is full of life and joy. He walks by my side with and without a leash and loves to play. You'll also see how nicely his wounds are healing and what a gentle soul he is.
I have done small and very controlled introductions of other animals like cats, chickens and dogs including a tiny little puppy. The reason for this, is to closely monitor his behavior and reactions to see if he could find
Greetings community, friends, suppawters and followers. Here is the happy ending. Apologies for the upside down video. I have no clue how to fix that
She has been released back into the area where she came from. Definitely one of the lucky ones that survived after being treated like a trophy hunting kill.
Please do not hesitate to contact us for any animal related concerns.
Thank you for all of your support and the following of our rescues. Without you none of this would be possible.
If you would like to aid or support us in what we are doing to help cover fuel, animal food supplies, vet bills and aftercare supplies, you can do so via EFT or PayPal. Banking details are as follows
Helderberg Wildlife Rescue
Capitec Bank
Savings account
1672019255
or
PayPal account is under [email protected]
We currently fall under Farm Paws' NPO number until the process of our NPC registration is complete. For those requesting Sec18 forms for tax returns, please use the following banking details with the reference Helderberg Wildlife Rescue
Farm Paws Raithby
Mercantile Bank
Cheq/Current Acc No: 1050-777-093
NPC:2020/522905/08
PBO: 930072405
Greetings community, friends, suppawters and followers. After taking some time off from catching and relocate snakes for some time, I was thrown into the deep end today.
With nobody else available to assist, and myself being hesitant, I decided to face my fears, and go remove a snake from a property with all sorts pets that stand the risk of being bitten. The caller has knowledge about snakes, and identified the snake as a Puffadder. Two things went through my mind. It is a nice and sunny warm day, so the snake is going to be hot, and that makes them even more defensive, and the other was the thought of the size.
Kept my cool on the way there, with my wife sitting next to me holding my hand. We arrived at the property, and there was Mr Puffie basking in the sun. The moment I approached the snake with a hook stick, he made a dash for a hole beneath a plant. That made the catch a bit more tricky, but I was able to spot the right time to get hold of the snake's tail, with no chance of the head coming up.
Well, I manged to get the snake out and into a tub for relocation.
Thank you for all of your support and the following of our rescues. Without you none of this would be possible.
If you would like to aid or support us in what we are doing to help cover fuel, animal food supplies, vet bills and aftercare supplies, you can do so via EFT or PayPal. Banking details are as follows
Helderberg Wildlife Rescue
Capitec Bank
Savings account
1672019255
or
PayPal account is under [email protected]
We currently fall under Farm Paws' NPO number until the process of our NPC registration is complete. For those requesting Sec18 forms for tax returns, please use the following banking details with the reference Helderberg Wildlife Rescue
Farm Paws Raithby
Mercantile Bank
Cheq/Current Acc No: 1050-777-093
NPC:2020/522905/08
PBO: 930072405
Greetings community, friends, suppawters and followers.
With myself being out of action (Doctor's orders) due to a Puffadder bite, I am unable to work to bring in funds for the rehabilitation animals in our care.
We absolutely hate asking a question like this as we do not want to be a burden on anyone.
We please need help with obtaining chicken hearts, chicken necks, Royal Canin Puppy Milk, crickets, meel worms and newspapers.
Our own expenses doesn't allow us to be able to bring in sufficient funds with only one income at the moment. We can either come collect, or if you prefer, you could do an EFT. The banking details are in the footnote of this post. Thank you in advance to anyone that can contribute to our cause and in turn helping us to help the animals.
Thank you for all of your support and the following of our rescues. Without you none of this would be possible.
If you would like to aid or support us in what we are doing to help cover fuel, animal food supplies, vet bills and aftercare supplies, you can do so via EFT or PayPal. Banking details are as follows
Helderberg Wildlife Rescue
Capitec Bank
Savings account
1672019255
or
PayPal account is under [email protected]
Huge apologies for the previous post. It was not supposed to have music in. Lol.
Howzit everyone. Friday I made a post regarding an influx of Cape Cobras in the Strand area, and literally half an hour after that post, we get a call for a snake in Strand, Lochnerhof area.
From a brief description, it sounded like a little harmless Aurora House Snake, but we still had to make sure that it is indeed not something else. The homeowner's husky was the one that spotted the snake first and alerted the homeowner to the presence of the snake to which the homeowner immediately called for help on the Strand Patrol animal rescue group and we were alerted by the founder of Strand Patrol.
The snake had picked a very good hiding spot which made visibility very difficult, but after checking the hole with my cellphone camera and a glimpse of the snake popped up, it was very clear that this "little" danger noodle was indeed not an Aurora House Snake, but a beautiful Cape Cobra. The hole that the snake was hiding only allowed for glimpses so figuring out the size was a bit difficult.
Cape Cobras with this colouration are usually juvenile, as most of them lose that stunning yellow colour the older they get. So the colour of the snake also through me off, making me think that a little juvenile Cape Cobra is going to come shooting out from that hole any second. But he had no interest to get off his couch and come join us on the outside.
Well after looking at every angle of how we could safely and gently could remove the snake with the snake cam, we were finally able to get this stunning specimen out after about an hour off struggling. And what a very pleasant surprise it was. Not only was he about a meter long, but seeing this snakes in this colouration happens very seldom to us due to our locality.
A huge thank you to the homeowner for not harming the snake and making use of our services.
Thank you for all of your support and the following of our rescues. Without you none of t
Howzit community, friends, suppawters and followers. As I said with my previous post, we still have a lot of rescues to share with you, so here is one from earlier this week.
We received a call regarding an injured animal, and as I stopped there, another rescue for a completely different animal needed attention too. A juvenile Cape Cobra had managed to wedge himself into a small narrow metal tube pipe, and seemingly couldn't get out again.
I ordered a snake cam from Wish due to tricky rescues where I can not see the animal through small gaps, and putting my own life at risk at times, and I finally got to use it. Apologies for the unstable video, I'm only starting to learn how to properly use the camera.
So after seeing that the snake definitely is not stuck, a good friend of mine helped me to get the snake out with water. Once he popped out, he was checked for injuries, and sent back on his merry way to help control the rodent population.
Thank you for all of your support and the following of our rescues. Without you none of this would be possible.
If you would like to aid or support us in what we are doing to help cover fuel, animal food supplies, vet bills and aftercare supplies, you can do so via EFT or PayPal. Banking details are as follows
Helderberg Wildlife Rescue
Capitec Bank
Savings account
1672019255
or
PayPal account is under [email protected]
We currently fall under Farm Paws' NPO number until the process of our NPC registration is complete. For those requesting Sec18 forms for tax returns, please use the following banking details with the reference Helderberg Wildlife Rescue
Farm Paws Raithby
Mercantile Bank
Cheq/Current Acc No: 1050-777-093
NPC:2020/522905/08
PBO: 930072405
Greetings community, friends, suppawters and followers. Here is another tricky rescue/removal/capture, but I absolutely love a challenge.
This beautiful male Cape Cobra was spotted making his way (back) into the lounge, and then proceeded to hide underneath a cabinet. So, when I got there, I thought it was going to be a quick rescue, but the moment I moved the cabinet away, the little guy went in under the cabinet and with a small gap to work with, it took some time to gently poke at the snake with the end of my hookstick, but I was finally able to drag him out.
After a quick "show and tell", he was released in a suitable area where human interaction is less likely to happen. I suspect that the Cobra has been living under that cabinet for a few days due to the mouse nest/den that was also underneath the cabinet. Well, at least they unknowingly provided mister snake with a good solid meal.
Thank you for all of your support and the following of our rescues. Without you none of this would be possible.
If you would like to aid or support us in what we are doing to help cover fuel, animal food supplies, vet bills and aftercare supplies, you can do so via EFT or PayPal. Banking details are as follows
Helderberg Wildlife Rescue
Capitec Bank
Savings account
1672019255
or
PayPal account is under [email protected]
We currently fall under Farm Paws' NPO number until the process of our NPC registration is complete. For those requesting Sec18 forms for tax returns, please use the following banking details with the reference Helderberg Wildlife Rescue
Farm Paws Raithby
Mercantile Bank
Cheq/Current Acc No: 1050-777-093
NPC:2020/522905/08
PBO: 930072405
Howzit community, friends, suppawters and followers. It's weekend which means people are home, relaxing, unwinding and trying to forget the week that has finally passed. In turn, it also means that a snake in the garden stands a bigger risk of being spotted. But thankfully most of the Helderberg community knows of us, and contacts us when situations with snakes happen.
This morning I received a phone call from my therapist. I thought she was calling to check in on me, but she had a walk-in, well, slither-in patient that thought if the therapist was good enough for me, then surely the therapist would be well suited for her as well. But there was a bit of a misunderstanding, so she decided to slither under the car, to go and seek a cool and safe spot in the engine compartment while she waited for the snake uber.
I couldn't find the snake at first, so out came the jack, and when I finally had the car at a height that would allow me to slip in under the car, I was able to get a glimpse of a part of her body. There she was, laying very peacefully on top of the steering shaft. A bit out of reach, but she decided to try and evade me by going up, towards the top of the engine making things a little bit easier. The space available was very narrow, so I had to remove both gloves to squeeze my hand in there and grab the lower part of her body, gently guiding her body past all the tight spots but she kept on resisting.
She eventually gave up on trying to get away from me, and that's when I was able to safely get her out without causing any injuries or discomfort. I'll add a few photos in the comment section as Facebook does not allow videos and photos posted at the same time. You'll then be able to see her beautiful Lindt chocolate brown colour and will also post a photo of her fangs.
It is a common myth that Boomslang needs to chew on a person to be able to inject a deadly and powerful Hemotoxin dose. This is not true. Boomslang, just like other snakes can almost open th
Howzit community, friends, suppawters and followers. Snakes are coming out by the dozens, mostly because of all the developments going on and the insane heat wave we are currently experiencing. Please be very aware of your surroundings when doing gardening or working in your garage. Also please inform any and all of your employees to also be aware of their surroundings at all times. If you do come across a snake in your house or garden, give us a call on 074 560 0711.
This beautiful specimen seeked refuge in a garage from the intense heat, trying to find a cool spot until the sun has set. But the garage was in a residential area on a private property, so having a very venomous snakes sharing the property was not an option.
It was a easy and quick capture of this stunning Cape Cobra, and as the snake was not injured at all, he was released half an hour later in a Nature Reserve.
Thank you to the homeowners for calling us and caring for the snakes life and future. Snakes are just as important to our environment as what owls are. They keep the numbers down of unwanted pests which in turn helps us as humans in a hygienic way as well as ensuring our homes do not get taken over by mice and rats.
Cape Cobras roughly have the same structure Neurotoxic venom as a Black Mamba, but they prefer to save their precious protein based venom for a utter last resort or for when they need to kill their prey. All snakes give several warnings before striking, and Cobras have an absolutely amazing display of warnings. Their first and very well-known defense stance is lifting his or her front part of their bodies to open up their magnificent hoodes, making them appear bigger. If that doesn't scare off the predator or (human) attacker, they will mock charge/strike forward while hissing loudly and blowing air out their lungs like a tyre tube would let off air. Most bites occur when the snake is either caught or literally attacked.
Please do not ever try to harm these creatures as t
