Home security footage of a snake taking a tumble off a porch is making the rounds on the Australian interwebs. The footage is from a home located in Queensland and features a brown snake, a rather common venomous snake in the country. In addition to being funny, the interloper also helps bust a common household myth about snakes. It’s been a long-held belief that venomous snakes can’t climb upwards, which the video dispels. Unfortunately, however, perhaps a snake that manages to fall off the side of a house, knocking down a flower pot on its way down may not be the best ambassador of its kind. It’s not the first time that an Australian snake met the ground so abruptly, and so close to people, so maybe it is time to reconsider what we can and cannot do about snakes that are in and about our homes.
Snakes are generally not welcome among typical households, least of all around Australian ones. Australia of course, is the country of 101 killers, from jellyfish to murderous wild dogs to poisonous spiders. Although snakes can be dangerous visitors, meeting the challenge unilaterally by just killing them outright is a mistake. This is because snakes are not just nuisances in the ecosystems we inhabit—they are also valuable assets that drive vermin numbers down. Rick Shine, professor of evolutionary biology at Macquarie University has published new research that outlines the concrete contributions snakes make to farmers and graziers alike. According to his findings, the cost of having snakes around is very little compared to the expense of having none at all. The obvious cost is of course the chance of getting bit by a brown snake (or worse), losing a pet, or livestock. The reality however is that snakes are responsible for very few deaths in Australia.
Professor Shine’s study was published in 2023 in Animal Conservation, a journal by the Zoological Society of London. The fieldwork cited in the article shows clear evidence that brown snake populations in farmland can be invisible as they are dense. This is because this particular species of snake lives mostly underground, moving through burrows to catch mice living in them. Data obtained through transmitters attached to snakes showed the research team that brown snakes could catch up to two to three mice per week. Extrapolating from this data, brown snakes account for several thousand mice being exterminated per square kilometre, every year. These numbers reflect a significant difference in farming efficiency, and pest control in general. Humans simply cannot match the efficacy of snakes: killing mice wandering around on the surface of the ground typically only affects the male mice population. Snakes on the other hand operate below the surface level and do not discriminate between the mice they encounter. This makes for more effective population control, as they eliminate male, female, and young mice living underground.
These benefits however need to be conveyed more effectively to the people who are impacted by snakes. There are clear improvements in the number of people who ask for the snakes they encounter to be removed, instead of killed outright. The challenge is that older generations have been taught at a very young age to kill any snake they encounter and have faithfully passed on this ‘lesson’ to their children. What most people who still engage in the practice don’t realise is that is when snake bites are most likely to occur. Snake bites are never delivered to humans with the intent of preying on them—only in defence. Triggering an aggressive encounter is almost always the very worst option to take. Attitudes among farmers however are changing with every day, and most who see a snake in their paddocks and farmland opt to give them a miss rather than trying to exterminate them. Only snake encounters around the home trigger a removal of the snake from the immediate vicinity with no harm to the snake, except perhaps to its dignity.
One snake handler, David Miles is cited on ABC Rural with real dollar values of having snakes around agricultural lands. According to Miles, snakes save farmers about AUD 2,500 in pest control, while incurring an insignificant cost when livestock are killed in accidental encounters, once every two or three years. The fact is, all livestock are also hardwired to avoid snakes whenever possible. Greater caution is needed to protect household pets from snakes, however, as their domestication may have bred out this natural caution. Dogs may attack snakes due to their protective or territorial instincts, while cats may try to hunt them down as prey. Except in the case of working dogs, it would be best to train pets to stick close to home, which environs can be protected by creating a natural barrier against snakes.
There are several ways in which you can deter snakes from entering the property immediately around your home. Several easily sourced plants create a physical as well as an olfactory barrier for snakes. Mint, rosemary, marigolds, and lemongrass are several such examples. All these plants emit a strong scent, which is what makes them so attractive in cooking. They can be planted in entry points into the garden that you may have noticed snakes using or around the entire perimeter. Making sure that the plants have the optimal sunlight, soil, and water will make sure the plants will emit the strongest possible scent. You can also periodically harvest their leaves to scatter on the garden to ensure maximum protection, or even create a spray to douse your lawns. Mint leaves should be brought to a rolling boil for about fifteen minutes before being used as a spray.
Snakes rely on their sense of smell to navigate their habitat and stalk and hunt their prey. Maintaining plants that emit strong odours around your garden discourages them from doing so. Mint in particular proliferates as a dense growth, which makes for a thick foliage that snakes find difficult to navigate through. Growths such as these force snakes to raise their bodies to traverse through them, which breaks their cover for prey and predators alike. Mint plants also attract cats to the area, always an opponent that snakes would rather avoid. Lemongrass is also difficult for snakes to move discreetly through. Lemongrass can grow up to four feet high and the sharp edges of its leaves can also be uncomfortable to go over or through. Marigolds are also an attractive snake deterrent—in addition to their strong scent, marigolds add welcome pops of colour to a home garden. These are all-natural, non-invasive ways to protect households from snakes while promoting biodiversity. In addition to diversifying the flora in your garden, it also protects legless fauna from falling off of your roofs.
(Theruni M. Liyanage)