Wild snake with ticks!

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Thanks mje772003, that was the comment I made to one of the people who said a shovel would have been best, as he was quite anti-snakes. I pointed out that if that snake dies, we are going to get more rats and mice & probably venomous snakes move in in it's place. Not that I'm worried about our resident eastern browns or other venomous snakes myself, but I knew he would be, and then he calmed down and agreed with me, that keeping a snake like our fellow here, is the best thing for the enviroment. I only look after South Stradbroke Island and the four campgrounds here, pretty much keeps us all busy enough. :)

Chadesash this is the exact same snake. He was found in this state on South Stradbroke Island, where we arranged for the snake to go to the mainland with the coast guard and then for the RSCA animal ambulance to transport him to the Curumbin Sanctuary Wildlife Hospital, as we have with so many South Straddie patients either fury, scaley, spikey (echidnas) etc, over the years. He is in foster care now I believe, with a carer from Wildcare. Do you work at the hospital? I really can't wait to have him back. I think I can hear the rats breeding in the walls now while he's gone. ;)
 
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Where are the campgrounds in relation to jumpinpin?
 
We used to camp at the ones at 'The Bedrooms' just down from the Pin where the first mangrove island is/was. I was there some years ago and the passage we used was almost fully silted up so the mangrove might be part of the main island by now. There's another area at Tipplers, don't know about the other two.
 
I wonder how they get so covered in ticks..and others dont...I wonder if the poor snake is unlucky enough to crawl through an area where there is an infestation and they all jump on...and like someone said earlier the snake can get them off its body but not off its head?

I also wonder if with all the rain we have had there is a tick plague at the moment ?
 
The snake was probably on a flying fox only diet and picked up some hitch hikers mid-meal..those bats are parasite heaven.
 
The other thread about the python with ticks opened a can of worms, I would be curious to know from your friend whether the vets feel the ticks would have dropped off in time and the snake been fine without help? Seems a few snakes have been found this summer in this condition.
 
Throw a ****ing molotov cocktail in that container after your done picking them all off!!!
 
I have an update for you all on how our python friend is doing. It is touch and go, we don't know yet if we've saved him or not, we may or may not have saved this beautiful guy. I have had a few phone calls from the carer from Wildcare, the lovely lady who is looking after him, & she has called him Parlay (remember Pirates of the Caribbean) which of course means truce. Parlay has not been feeling much better and has still not eaten yet. Yes I know, not a great concern with snakes, but why. His head was still extremely swollen, and the carer was not happy with the fact that there just wasn't enough improvement with the swelling of his head and his eyes, and he still didn't seem to be able to see. She took him back to Currumbin Sanctuary Wildlife Hospital, for them to do some more blood work and tests. They did. Initially he was extremely anaemic, which with all those ticks was understandable, he was now less anaemic, but still somewhat so, which wasn't the concern. The concern was why was his head still soooooooo swollen. Another question all along was, why was he still that long, or hibernating that long, to get that many ticks on him? They are still picking off up to 40 ticks off him per day. A lot of ticks were hiding under the scales and were too small to see to the naked eye. As they grow and get bigger they can then be seen to remove. The carer has said there were far more than well over a hundred ticks on Parlay, she is estimating closer to a thousand. I doubt without human intervention that this snake would have ever been well enough to survive on it's own, even if all the ticks fell off on their own and new ones didn't get on at all. They decided to X-ray his head. They found that he had 3 bad fractures to his skull one close to his eye where its like there is a big crater. It looks like our friend had been run over by a vehicle. This must be why he was hibernating so long in summer. He couldn't eat, and he would have been in so much pain. I doubt without the fractures, he would have had that level of ticks on him, but even if he did and there had been no fractures, I doubt he would have recovered from the anaemia, but with the fractures to the head, preventing him from eating along with anaemia, no way. Now he's back on the pain meds & antibiotics. He definitely won't be back on the island until after winter now, but at least we know what we are dealing with. Let's just hope he can recover enough for us to pick up Parlay in our boat with his carer in about 8 months or so time, to release him back to his native bushland on South Straddie.
 
I'm just curious if using a pinkie pump to feed him would help with his anemia and give him the resources to recover quicker?
 
Wow! Thanks for the update. Fingers crossed he pulls through and we get to hear more updates with more and more good news ver the next few months.
 
Very cool. This girl is my mate she is in my girlfriend's year at vet school.
Snake was seen at Australia zoo. Ticks removed and snake sent to a carer... there is probably an underlying cause though. Snakes should not have that many ticks.

EDIT: derr I didn't read the whole thing - there is the underlying cause haha car to the head
 
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Very cool. This girl is my mate she is in my girlfriend's year at vet school.
Snake was seen at Australia zoo. Ticks removed and snake sent to a carer
... there is probably an underlying cause though. Snakes should not have that many ticks.

EDIT: derr I didn't read the whole thing - there is the underlying cause haha car to the head

You are talking about another snake aren't you? This one was found on Sth Straddy and sent to Corrumbin for treatment. Seems to be a few snakes in this circumstance lately. Although this thread has been far less controvertial than the one with the video of the tick infested python from Lismore.
 
Hi Gruni, I've just been reading that thread about the other python with the tick infestation. Talk about bickering! I guess a lot of them would feel that we did the wrong thing by helping our snake here Parlay, but even if poor Parlay doesn't make it, I would still do the same thing all over again & I have no regrets. Yes in lots of ways I do agree with the sentiment that we should, should if at all possible, leave no footprint. As humans we do leave too great a footprint on our enviroment, however I also agree with the sentiment that as humans we have hurt our enviroment & our wildlife (sometimes purposely & sometimes unintentionaly) far to much, and if we can make it up to them in some small way by (in this case) saving the life of a snake to replace the one that got killed by the car or the barbed wire fence etc etc, then why shouldn't we do that? I love the wallabies & bandicoots on Straddie too, but no I'm not going to rip one out of the jaws of a capet python to save it, even if it wasn't already too late by then. Nature is nature, & I think using common sense is always a good thing. As far as using the RSPCA comments on that other thread is concerned, I competely understand where those comments are coming from. I have had hardly any luck with them either. I usually call Wildcare Australia, & if I can get the animal to them on the mainland, they will always pick it up somehow to take it to Currumbin Sanctuary Wildlife Hospital, or will organise the Animal Ambulance for me. This time I did have to ring the RSPCA however to get the Animal Ambulance. The girl who sounded extremely young on the phone did not sound very happy to be rescuing a snake, & made comments to the fact that they were too busy and had too many other animals to pick up that morning. I told her however, that I had spoken to Currumbin Hospital & I had spoken to Wildcare & I had spoken to 'Fred' from the Ambulance, who were all waiting to hear from her, to do her part to register the pick up. I think I guilted her into arranging it, otherwise, I don't think she would have. All other calls I have made to RSPCA previously resulted in them telling me to ring someone else.

The thing I don't understand is why people can't perservere until they find someone willing to help. Not really trying to have a go at the OP on the other thread, but surely he could have done something other then half heartedly try to knock a few ticks off and then walk away after taking photos and video footage. I competely understand why he wouldn't want to capture the snake himself to take it into care, but there are people he can call who will do that, who are trained to do that. We here are all trained in how to handle venomous snakes and are all confident to do so, but if we were not trained, I would not attempt to capture an injured or sick venomous snake (ours this time was just a non-venomous python), but I would still call someone, particuarly if it was a python, but even if it wasn't, to get someone who knew what they were doing to help. We have to look after our wildlife before they go the ways of the Dodo.

As for paralasis tick paralising a snake or a reptile, I don't know for sure if they do, but I would really doubt it. Our Wallabies are immune to the ticks and they usually do have quite a lot of them on them at all times, with no ill effects. If you find a wallaby that has hundreds or thousands of ticks on them, then they may die from anaemia, but I really doubt in that case, that the wallaby would not have an underlying cause or sickness that would allow for that wallaby to have so many ticks on them. I think the same would be for a snake, and in Parlay's case, it was the car running over his head.

To the person who said that ticks don't hurt on a human, I beg to differ, as one time I had 4 ticks on me, 3 on my head, and one on my shoulder. One was on my temple and that one I think did the damage. I had the toxin I think go through my glands. My face swelled up, and I felt pressure on my ear-drum and my eye ball socket. I slept through an entire day and night, then went to the doctor who put me on antibiotics and antihystamines. I find it difficult not to like any creature on earth, but ticks, I find it pretty difficult to like. Gruni, the comments you made, made perfect sense to me however. I think Philk must have been talking about another snake up there on the Sunny Coast. I noticed, that there was another python with a similar snake infestation last year also. Currumbin Sancutary Wildlife Hospital said that they had never seen an infestation close to that on any reptile before. I think comments like that, would mean that it would always be extremely likely that there would always be an underlying cause to create that kind of infestation, such as an injury or pre-existing illness, in an animal that was immune to paralasis ticks. They will cause paralsis in dogs & cats and other animals, which without proper treatment in time, will lead to death, but not all animals are effected in that way by paralisis ticks. Doesn't mean they won't finish off the job by causing aneamia to an animal that would have recovered from their injury or other illness if it wasn't for those ticks. Should we leave an animal in that state to die on it's own, knowing that there is most probably something else wrong with it? That is something that each individual will have to determine for themselves I guess while they wrestle with their moral demonds. For me though it's a no brainer, I'm going to help every time, even if it's to get the animal euthanased, if it is deemed not to be savable. Just my 2 cents worth. Apologies in advance for being long-winded, and passionate about this.
 
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