LOOK: Python washes up on KZN beach following devastating floods
|Published
Durban snake catcher Nick Evans with the python that washed up on Westbrook Beach. Picture: Supplied
Durban - Following days of heavy rainfall and floods in KZN, a three metre-long female python washed up at Westbrook beach on the KZN North Coast.
Durban snake catcher Nick Evans said residents near the Westbrook area were checking out the state of their beach, when they spotted the large Southern African Python among the debris.
“Poor thing must have had a heck of a time. The Tongaat river was quite close. It must have got washed down, and ended up here. It must have been like being in a washing machine,” he said.
Evans said he headed out on Tuesday evening at around 6pm.
“All the vegetation looked like a wetland, in the dark, in the middle of the beach.
“I was quite surprised by the size of the python. It was well over three metres.
“The python was entangled in the debris, but I saw the head sticking out one end. I grabbed that quickly, as I was worried it would try head deeper in.
“I then fed the head back through the vegetation, towards where the rest of the body was, while trying to rip out some of it with my free hand in between. Resident, Tony Perkins, helped me pulling vegetation out the way, untangling the snake.
“I soon had it out. It is a very impressive-sized python, very chunky, looked well fed,” he said.
Evans said the snake seemed “absolutely fine” apart from being cold and exhausted.
“She's been given some warmth and will be released as soon as conditions permit,” he said.
Evans said it wasn’t the only snake that washed up on beaches along the coastline.
He said he had received photographs of a python and frogs washed up along Umdloti beach.
“A vine snake was spotted at Umzumbe, and a monitor lizard at North beach, Durban,” Evans said.
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