The Eastern Brown Snake, also known as the Common Brown Snake, is the second-most venomous land snake in the world. According to the book Venomous Creatures of Australia: A Field Guide with Notes on First Aid, brown snakes are responsible for more snakebite deaths in Australia than any other species of snake.
These deadly snakes are actually fairly common, and snake catchers like Stuart McKenzie of Sunshine Coast Snake Catchers 24/7 in Australia often receive calls to capture them.
One time, Stuart had some homeowners call him about a snake on their balcony. They thought it was nothing more than a tree snake (which is venomous but only delivers its venom in small doses).
However, the homeowners were mistaken, and the snake on their balcony was actually a brown snake. This discovery was made when Stuart sent one of his snake catchers, Matt, to remove the snake from the premises:
“When Matt arrived he was surprised to see that it was in fact an Eastern Brown snake,” Stuart wrote on his business’ Facebook page. “The only way it could have gotten up there [on the balcony] was by climbing a large pandanus tree next to the balcony that you can see in the background of the photo.”
Matt didn’t have much of a chance to observe the snake, because it immediately panicked as soon as it saw him. Rather than turn around and attack, the snake avoided capture by tossing itself off the balcony:
“As soon as the snake saw Matt come out onto the balcony it decided to launch itself off the two story balcony and onto the ground and then disappeared back into the bush,” Stuart relayed.
Stuart says this experience proves that even venomous snakes like brown snakes “are NOT aggressive but in fact want nothing to do with humans and will go to drastic measure [sic] to get away from us.”
Even though Matt didn’t capture the snake, he did get a picture of it before it fled. Check out that picture and the story of his encounter (as told by Stuart) below.
