Hiss and Tell

You want a watchdog, but you don't want fleas, chewed-up rugs or undying loyalty. Why not get a snake? By Leigh-Anne Hunter

My scalp prickles when I peer down and realise there's barely an inch of my body not covered with lavender-scaled, sinuous muscle, as the albino reticulated python coils around me in a lover's embrace.

You would think that by now I'd be accustomed to the caress of a snake - I'm married to one. It could be worse, I know. I could have married a pig. In fact, contrary to Western notions, those born under the snake sign in the Chinese zoo-diac are regarded as charming, successful and likely guests on Oprah. (Yes, she's a snake too.)

As anyone who knows his fire rats from his metal roosters will also tell you, it's a particularly auspicious time for serpents like Pierce Brosnan, Charlie Sheen and my husband as the snake rears its head in our astrological calendar today.

Snakes, it seems, are everywhere. Annually, up to 7000 people flock to the two-day Johannesburg Reptile Show, many to buy one as a pet. "Last year at the expo, I sold a snake to a 15-year-old boy for R48000," Pretoria herpetologist Arno Naudé tells me.

The local rodent guy can't keep up with demand. "He breeds about 14000 rodents a month and pet-snake owners are crying because it's not enough," says Naudé. One of his own pet pythons gobbles up to 10 rodents in a sitting - he gets them delivered express, gassed and frozen, to his home. "She's a bit of a pig," he says fondly.

Considering the prevalence of ophidiophobia - fear of snakes - the demand for these animals seems a curious trend. Even Indiana Jones screamed like a girl in the presence of snakes.

A desire to recreate a piece of the wild is one of the factors contributing to the upswing in the pet-snake trade. And few intruders will mess with a serpent on guard. "You'd be surprised how many people think I'm bluffing," says Naudé of the "beware of the snake" sign outside his home. Until they peer through the window and see a gaboon viper, deceptively placid, its fangs sharp enough to pierce boot soles.

Small non-venomous corn and milk snakes are popular pets. "Venomous pet snakes are another ball game. You don't want to know how many we have in this country," says Naudé. For some, it's an ego boost. "People like to brag: 'I own a 9mm and a sports car and an animal that can kill you'." Also, the more lethal the snake, the more beautiful they tend to be. "Some bush vipers are drop-dead gorgeous. But people must know how to keep them. I wouldn't be happy if I knew that a tiger was prowling my neighbour's lawn."

We dare not forget the case of Dolce and Gabbana, two lavender albino reticulated pythons who plotted an escape out of their Joburg home. "They must have curled around the door handle and let themselves out," their owner, Angi Latimer, speculates.

When Naudé started keeping pet snakes at the age of 12 in the '70s, the hobby was virtually unheard of. "I taught myself a little about snakes, which was a hell of a lot more than everyone else. I quickly became 'the snake guy'."

It was at about the same time that small-town girl Glenda Kemp shimmied her lithe, oil-slathered frame across the stage wearing little else but homemade nipple caps and a python named Oupa.

"You'll never find a stripper with a parrot, but you'll find them with a snake," muses Naudé, who occasionally supplies strip clubs. "I always feel sorry for these poor girls struggling with huge pythons." And he would know. "They can grow up to several metres. They're a bitch to work with. I suppose there's an allure for people because they're torn between breasts and the snake. They want to look, but don't want to at the same time."

But I'm not about to attempt a Kemp move as Naudé's pet python weaves inches from my face, flicking a probing tongue in a flirtatious game of hiss and tell. "She won't eat you," he says, reading my thoughts. "You don't smell like rabbit."

As we speak, he regularly checks his phone for calls, most often to deal with a snake that has hitched a ride under someone's Land Rover. "Sometimes people phone me to remove a snake in their garden, calling it 'Satan's child'. I ask them: 'Do you have a rat problem?' 'No,' they generally say, 'but we used to.' The good that snakes do goes unnoticed. People don't realise that when we remove snakes, we invite plagues."

False alarms are also common. "People often mistake scarves and belts for snakes," he says. But occasionally, he'll deal with a life-threatening case. "Someone phoned me from the back of an ambulance, desperate. 'My sister has been bitten by a Central American rattlesnake,' he said. 'I need anti-venom'."

Naudé knows well the feeling of panic: he has been bitten by snakes before. "We all make mistakes," he says. "If you hold it incorrectly and it bites you, don't blame the snake. If you held me up by the neck I'd also bite you."

When he's not snake-sitting peeved pythons and rattlesnakes on movie sets, Naudé offers education and training. For example, he uses snakes in industrial theatre to represent dangers to mineworkers. "You can't see or hear a rinkhals, so they're a perfect metaphor for methane explosions. If I stood there and talked, people could easily fall asleep. When I take out one snake, I have everyone's attention."

Ducking into a room, he appears holding a speckled cobra by the tail, stroking it with his foot. "Be nice. This way girl," he says, without a trace of fear. "Venom is expensive for them, so they don't want to waste it on an animal they're not going to eat."

In addition to curbing habitat destruction, a major threat to snakes, what's the one thing Naudé would introduce if he could? "Cheap Viagra." The practice of drinking snake blood while the snake is still alive is considered an aphrodisiac in parts of Asia. "People need to realise that snakes don't have mystical powers. They may shed their skin, but so do we, just over a longer period."

Celebrities like Kim Kardashian have him spitting with rage. "Since she started wearing them, snakeskin handbags and boots became the thing." Naudé's advice for the ethically fashion-conscious? When they're killed, often inhumanely, pythons lose the distinctive geometric patterns that make them so attractive. So rather fake it.