Some homeowners in Australia spotted a handful of venomous redbellies going in and out of a mulch pile in their backyard, so they called in a snake-removal expert. Well, that expert left with no fewer than 102 red-bellied black snakes—97 newborns and five adults—all extracted from this Australian backyard.
“Upon arrival, we expected to remove four redbellies that had been seen,” wrote Reptile Relocation Sydney in a Facebook post sharing a video of some of the snakes the company removed from the backyard. “Dylan was the man for the job and got straight to work going through the mulch. Within a few minutes, we knew this was going to be unusual. Snake after snake, they just kept being uncovered. Long story short, we went for four adults and came out with 102 snakes in total.”
The comments section reflects people’s horror at the situation. It has also brought out some folks’ sense of humor. The top comment, for instance, is: “I’ll give you my ex husbands address where you can release all of them.” To which, Reptile Relocation Sydney replied: “that is part of our special request services, we will send you the form.”
Red-bellied black snakes are venomous but not considered very dangerous to humans. The Australian Museum says: “Despite the number of bites received every year, very few human deaths have resulted [. . .]. Many bite victims experience only mild or negligible symptoms, however a number also end up hospitalized.”
See some of the snakes pulled from the nightmare mulch pile in an Australian backyard here: