A snake catcher’s perspective on FEAR

I am in the middle of writing a book on the subject of fear and how I have come up with a different perspective on fear and how fear towards certain animals are similar to our fears towards eachother as well as our differences and how our behaviours with dealing with that fear aren’t much different to the way we deal with our fear towards other animals. I thought I’d share the main ideas of the book, in this blog, hoping for a positive response and see how much interest it generates.

I am a snake catcher. I have been catching snakes as a hobby for about 4 years now. I was doing it as a side hustle from working as a zoo keeper at Australia zoo and recently quit to do snake catching full time. it’s a very unique job and I know what you are thinking.. Omg this is a full time job in Australia?! You bet it is! I love it! My job consists of me going to people’s houses or businesses and relocating snakes from their property and releasing them out into the bush at anytime during day or night (we are 24/7). I experience everyone’s fear a lot while on the job. I love observing their fear and questioning what it is about the snakes that is so fearful? Why are we so afraid of certain animals? Is it because we are brought up like that? Listening to our parents and elders about the danger and horrible things they can do? Is it the movies that demonise and use those animals as pure killing machines that are out to eat every human in their path? Is it the media that chooses words like attack instead of defend, maul instead of bite or fierce instead of inquisitive? It could definitely be all of those things! And I’m sure you are wondering what made you scared of a particular animal. Whether it’s spiders, snakes, sharks or crocodiles.

Snakes and other animals that seem to have a bad reputation are not as bad as you think. I have heard every snake story under the sun. Trust me.. everyone has a snake story. “Mate, you wouldn’t believe the size of this snake I had at my property once. It had to have been over 20 metres!” Or “i was outside raking the yard when 5 eastern browns chased me back into the house! I had to save my kids, my beer and the lawn mower from becoming snake food! You wouldn’t believe it!” Everyone always exaggerates 😂. I have caught over 300 eastern browns and I can tell you not one has chased me. They are extremely scared of us and a simple YouTube search on a snakes behaviour and how they react towards you will calm your nerves right down. They are beautiful animals just trying to survive. You could say that about most commonly feared animal.

Everyone is always happy to admit that they are afraid of a particular animal. Why are people so afraid to admit that we are afraid of each other? What makes us so afraid of immigration? Males and rejection? The lgbtq community? People of colour in certain neighbourhoods? Is it because we are brought up like that? From our parents and elders that have that old school attitude? From movies like a birth of a nation that has demonised the entire African American culture and still to this day has huge effects on how people view said culture? Or how the media uses particulary provocative words like terrorist, muslim, African gangs, urban thugs etc? Again, you could say yes to any of them. I hope you are thinking about that for a minute and have made the connection Of what I’m trying to portray.

I’m always hearing people talk about the Muslim community or the African American community. How they are dangerous and we can’t have more immigrants coming into the country because they will convert everyone to muslim or you will get shot if you like at someone. Instead of understanding where they come from and the root cause of it. Certain people don’t like the idea of homosexuality because they are in fear of their religion or masculine image. Why do you think that is?

What it ultimately comes down to is a lack of understanding. There is always fear and risk. It’s only natural to feel scared at times and there will always be risk. But, why do we go out of our way to either kill (for the sake of my profession) the snake in fear that it’s going to bite you or your family? Instead of coming to terms and understanding that leaving the snake alone and either calling a catcher or leaving it to move on, is the safest thing you could do for your family. understanding that it’s dangerous and respect the snakes capabilities and let it continue about its life. Why attack or go out of your way to condemn someone who is different than you because of your own fears? Why not take the time to understand the fear, know there is risk involved. It’s No different then crossing the road or driving. Cant we be less judgemental that if you don’t act out or create barriers for that other culture then you are unnecessarily causing problems and more danger to yourself instead of taking the time to understand and learn about that culture. The beautiful thing about people is that we have the ability to talk to eachother. We also have the unique ability to rationalise our fear. We are not so lucky when it comes to animals. We can not communicate with a snake or shark and talk about our differences. That would be awesome if we could!

I hope this perspective helps you or someone that you know that struggles to accept their fears and learns to educate and understand them. whether it’s on certain animals or certain cultures in the hope of becoming less volcanic when it comes to vulnerability and retaliation. Retaliate with conversation and realise that risk is everywhere and you obviously need to be aware. It is unavoidable no matter what colour your skin is, what religion you are, what gender you prefer or what sex you are. You could wipe out the entire population of snakes, will you become less scared? How would you truely know there is no other snake around? Acting out in aggression will never reduce your fears. The more you understand and critically think about the situation the better society will be. For the animals and for the people.

Peace ✌🏽