Experts plead: Don't harm snakes, call us

IF YOU SEE A SNAKE crossing the road, don't panic

Don't drive over it. Don't hit it with a sharp weapon. Don't hit it with a shoe, and if it finds its way into your house and into a room, close the window, lock the door and call the Caribbean Herpetological Society right away.

Chances are it is "a very harmless", indigenous grass snake that is non-poisonous, said Geoffrey Browne yesterday in a telephone interview after he collected another such snake, his third in about two weeks.

Browne said the three-foot snake found in Church View, St John, was not a threat. It was killed after the person who found it drove over it with a vehicle.

"It is not a panic situation and I want to advise people not to panic. When you see it, stay a safe distance, watch it, and call us, and we would come and get it," he said.

By "we" he meant Damon Corrie and other members of the society who are on the hunt for the big snakes, like boa constrictors and pythons, which are also not poisonous. (DS)

Geoffrey Browne, (left) a representative of the Caribbean Herpetological Society, putting the snake into an envelope held by environmental health officer Andrew Connell.