THE floodwaters may have subsided, but there is a new concern for people visiting Bathurst’s waterways – snakes.
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Winter is usually a hibernation period for snakes, but the floodwaters have washed many of the reptiles out of their hiding holes.
As soon as the Macquarie River begun subsiding on Thursday morning, snakes started appearing along the riverbanks.
Snake catcher Peter Graham was called out by Bathurst Regional Council to remove one snake from near the edge of the low level bridge on Hereford Street, but he came back with eight.
“I’ve got seven tiger snakes and a brown snake, and I saw a few others head back into the water,” he said.
Mr Graham said it was not uncommon to see snakes after floods and estimated that hundreds of them would be washed out of their hibernation and on to the riverbanks.
“The tiger snake’s main habitat is around the river, they’re in holes and burrows and they’ve been washed down [river],” he said.
The Bathurst region is known for having some of the most venomous snakes in the world including the eastern brown, tiger and the red-bellied black snake.
“The [eastern] brown is the second most venomous in the world, the tiger is the fourth,” Mr Graham said.
“A juvenile [tiger] has enough venom to kill a couple of adults.”
Other less common species of snakes in the region are the copperhead and death adder.
Mr Graham urged people walking along any waterways to be aware of snakes and not to approach them.
“Be very, very wary of where you’re walking and don’t pick them up,” Mr Graham said.
The snakes may have survived the floods, but Mr Graham’s concern is that it is still too cold for them to be out during the winter months.
“If I went and released them in this weather they’d probably struggle to find somewhere warm so I’ll probably house them until spring and then release them,” he said.