I was intrigued to see PBS had a show about Black Mambas, most of the times I turn these African shows off as the people have never lived in the Bush, they are disrespectful of the natives, or the shows are just hosted by silly twits on Safari or tourists or egghead anthropologists. I was fortunate to spend several years living in the African bush, mainly on the Eastern Plains when Africa was sparsely settled. Most of these times I turn these shows off as it some herpetologist or other ‘Gaia’, the earth is god pumping how friendly the Mamba is. I still have nightmares about that snake.
Now the show was interesting as it was an Afrikaner women married to an English Jew and the woman did all the snake catching , not her timid husband. It was interesting to see a paved road in Africa, as if there was a road back when i worked there, it was a track at best and I never saw a paved road where I worked in Africa. It was kind of a shock to see a paved road in Africa but this woman was down in Swasiland, a rather beautiful country well inhabited. Where I worked it was common to see enormous herds of elephants and lions and game that had never seen man and had no fear of man and you were often a few hundred miles from the nearest small village. Needless to say the intervening 40 years African population has exploded. So I was also shocked at the number of people. But the Africans measure their wealth by the number of wives, children, cattle and land they have. So I guess that was to be expected as modern irrigation and other agricultural techniques were introduced and they got wealthy by African standards.
This is the first documentary I have seen where they did not try and underplay the number of people killed every years by Mambas. I never visited a village where every spring, or what passes for spring after the rain and during the mating season, at least one villager was not killed by a Mamba. The vaccine is very recent, and must be refrigerated and those remote village simply dont have electricity so a Mamba bite is fatal. If a worker was bitten the firm I worked for was certainly not going to fly a helicopter in, ex, except as whiteman they would fly a helicopter in to pick your body up so it did not rot, if you got bit by a Mamba.
This woman was quite brave in that she went out with her timid husband wanting to catch these mambas and release them away from the villages. Now she was living in a very populated country with good roads and could carry a vaccine in her car so she is relatively safe unless the mamba injects right into a major artery or vein, in which case the vaccine probably wont help unless you’re hospitalized quickly with an artificial lung to breath for you and some tranfusions. I felt somewhat sorry for her as despite training, she did not really have the skills to catch a mamba even with the snake sticks, and its only a matter of time, I think before she and her husband will be bit. Im more disappointed in her husband letting her do that dangerous work.
Now one thing she did show is that the africans are absoluteys terrified of the Mamba, which is the king of snakes, and by far. Mambas do everything well, they can easily chase down a man, or a child or even a horse, they climb when they are young nearly like a bird, and are excellent swimmers and are masters of disguise and hyperintelligent for snake. Now the woman was more perceptive than most people as she recognized how curious the mambas are and how intelligent. She did manage to find one black police officer she trained to help her and he was quite good as he had those excellent african reflexes combined with an inherent respect for the snake. He wont ever get bit. So hopefully she can eventually train some of the local police, but I was never able to. Now I don’t like snakes in particular as I have had too many close calls with them, but I dont have the Africans 3000 years or 50000 years of DNA programming and instinctual fear of them.
In villages, as they store their grains, they attract rats and the mambas as they get bigger want bigger prey and the birds and field mice, toads and other snakes are not enough so they come in looking for the big rats. In addition they like to crawl under houses which are cool and dark and if you’re lucky enough to have a swamp cooler or air conditioning, which I never was, they love to come into cool houses during the hot seasons. It is the only snake I have ever encountered without an inherent fear of man. Their other ‘bad habit is that they will climb into the rafter as often the roof if it is thick enough is relatively cool compared to the ground sometime. Nothing is worse than having a mamba swing down into your face from the rafters.
Now ‘back’ then, you had no choice but to go in, if some Mambas had invaded the village and just shoot them, as they are very territorial especially during the mating season or if you’re unlucky enough to have one lay her eggs under your house. Now if the snake was a cobra or a small mamba, say under 3 feet, I would just catch it and put it in a box and take it out into the bush and let it go. Now if the town has a police officer the police are supposed to come but they back then they seldom had guns, and were as afraid of the Mamba as any other african , so to stay on good terms, I used to come out and take the mamba out, either with a shotgun or stick if I happened to be staying in a town with local police in it, which was not very often.
Now the oddest thing was a pair of Mambas that were terrorizing some cattle, and they had killed so many, they were out of venom, yet they were still striking at the cattle, and they seemed to enjoy chasing the cattle around and striking them. I did not believe it when the blacks describeD it to me, but when I saw it for my own eyes I can see why the entire village had been abandoned. I thought ‘what a cheeky couple’ their trying to drive the entire village out and claim the village rat nests for their own.
Now the Mamba is the only snake that when it moves and at high speed, it is so strong its head is up quite high. This pair must have recognized I was the killer and the male made a move towards, me and I blasted him, then the female started to come after me and I blasted her, as they were an enormous pair of Mambas.
In the area where I working if the locals lost their cattle it meant starvation, so you have to give them some money and pay for them to butcher the cattle and jerk it. So for the locals the mambas are often a matter of life or death. I figured this pair must have nested nearby and the female was pregnant with eggs. They say the Mambas are solitary but I dont believe it as you often see them in pairs and not just during the mating season.
This woman did not know much about the snakes as she did not live in the bush, but at least she was the first white person I have ever seen on TV that had a more sympathetic attitude towards helping the locals, but she was I think they said a 4 th generation african.
Oddly enough the safest time to be out snake wise in the bush is during the mid day heat during the height of summer. You dont know heat until you lived in the bush of Eastern Africa. Its too hot to wear anything but a pair of boots, and shorts and straw hat. I was fortunate to spend most of my career on the plains rather than in the hill country with a lot of rain, now the Mambas are smaller there, but nearly impossible to detect and you have to constantly be scanning both the ground and trees you’re walking under. In the plains the mambas tend to be a lot larger and to hunt mainly at night and are in general too big to climb much.
Oddly curious Mambas you build a fire thinking your going to be safe from animals, but not the Mambas, the fire and heat will attract them on a cool night and your just as likely to have one come slithering in from the bush to park his sorry snakes butt next to your fire or they are curious and come to check you out. So you learn to build three fires and sleep in the middle…pdq..lol.
And it does not matter how good your house is, although I mainly lived in a tent, the Mambas seem to find a way to get in.
African mongoose and if you can find one and tame it, or the honey badger some of the villages will keep them and the mambas will at least give a house with a mongoose a wide berth or the honey badger. The honey badger is probably the most amazing animal in Africa, although few people will ever appreciate that, you have never seen an animal with tenacity until you see a honey badger. Before they built the Suez, and broke the bridge to the European continent, the middle east used to have quite a bit of African wildlife, like Lions, honey badgers, cobras. I was always surprised they did not make a land bridge for the animals to migrate over, but such is man, eh, thoughtless.
The mamba can be a very beneficial snake as it is much more active than the cobra and other snakes and is a voracious hunter of field mice and other snakes.
You get a different perspective on nature when you get out and sleep in the bush. To be frank, I have never cared for tents much, and slept outside a lot, but with a gun in my boot. The whole purpose of going to africa is to watch the stars every night and meet the wildlife. Human company is vastly over-rated imo. When Im out in the bush in the Americas, I never sleep in a tent. Seems to defeat the whole point of going out into the bush.
Nice to see a more realistic portrayal of what the Africans locals have to go through with the Mamba. So I was quite pleased to allocate some time to watch the show.
Funny to see this brave Afrikaner women married to this timid somewhat cowardly prissy J. I took it he was rich as they owned a big tourist spread, but other than that hard to see what she saw in the man. He was ugly as sin and quite prissy and she was a handsome woman.
Lol, still you got to love those Mambas, as they are such a fearless predator.
