Hawaii News and Island Information

Puna resident Tom Lackey recently reported that he called in a snake to the DLNR.  I haven’t been able to find any police reports or other reports, but Tom Lackey doesn’t seem to be one to make up too many stories.

The following is an account he posted on Punaweb and below are some pictures that he sent me:

A very interesting situation happened to me the day after Xmas. One of my neighbor friends [yes, I do have neighbor friends] came thru my back yard to visit and Toast [my devoted dog] announced his visit. He informed me that he just saw a snake slither away from him. I asked, “are you sure?” He said, “hey Lack I lived in Florida for years and I recognize what a snake looks like, it was a brown snake.” He told me that it was coiled up and when he approached it the snake slithered off thru a loose rock wall behind my house. We did what I think any responsible citizen would do and called the police. They said, what ever you do don’t touch it, we’ll have someone out to take a look. Then the operator said that she informed DLNR and they will handle it. DLNR passed it off to the Ag people and we got two calls from them. This all happened within ten minutesMy neighbor and I though Wow, these people are really taking some decisive action here. The Ag guy wanted to babble with my neighbor on the phone and after quizzing him about his ability to recognizing a snake they derivably determined to come to my house and investigate. When these guys showed they were prepared for big game. One was wearing thick rubber boots and heavy leather gloves. Both had snake grabber sticks and an array of snake things to catch a snake. Also within their arsenal they had a video camera. This was too much fun for me so I went into the house and got my camera and documented it all. I informed the Ag guys that I had shot a couple of rats in the last few days and if they wanted when they located the snake I would be glad to dispatch it to a better life. They just laughed and said “stand by with that”

While the four of us were trying to locate the snake, them in snake gear and us in shorts and flip flops my neighbor asked,” if it was a poisonous snake and any of us got bit do they have any anti venom on the island?” There response was “not a drop” it has a short shelf life and they don’t get any snake bites in Hawaii. So I said, ‘so then why all the snake gear if we don’t get snake bites?”

The snake hunt went on for about a hour and the two Ag guys would confer with each other and at one point we heard them say, “ there is a lot of activity here,” when poking thru some dead leafs I asked if they had some snake traps that they could set out and they said, “we have some in Honolulu but none here.”

The snake was about 1 ½ feet long and about 1 ½ inch in diameter, brown in color. It very possibility could be a brown tree snake from areas like Guam and very dangerous. As the Ag guy said, “it most likely is a baby snake and not a big threat.” What I said? Baby snakes come from big mama snakes and we could have a bunch of them here. They laughed and left me their number and said to call if I spotted it again. The Hunt was over and the snake is at large behind my house. I don’t care how many people call the police if I see the snake I’m going to blow it’s head clean off

With the great food source here in Puna we may have a new invasive foe. The Brown Tree Snake.

The Lack

Filed under: Agriculture, Environment, Puna, Rumors | Tagged: Agriculture, Community, Environment, Puna, Rumors, Snakes, Strange/Weird | 1 Comment »