Here’s one big snake caught on an electric fence in South Africa near the town of Nyngan, New South Wales, Australia.**
Photo via Helen Mahar, correct identification thanks to Nexus
Ouch!
Someone had some fun suggesting this python was Australian and from Nyngan. While Nyngan doesn’t have any African rock pythons …
Nyngan and the struggle to contain invasive woody weeds on farmland was the focus of viagra a television program entitled ‘The Great Land-Clearing Myth’ which screened on ‘Sunday’ last August.
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** Thanks to Nexus for setting us straight.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Jen,
You’ve been lied too. This photo wasn’t taken in Nyngan, it was taken in South Africa. The full details are here:
http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/fencesnake.asp
You should be a little more careful in checking what you post.
Here’s some more pics:
http://www.bushveld.co.za/pictures-python.htm
That’s not an electric fence. The wires are not held on insulators. If it were electrified, the way they are attached to the steel posts would ground out the system.
Schiller!
You may be right, but I think those posts are made of recycled plastic, not the conventional star posts we use here, although they are available here as well. (have to look for it!!)
Cheers
It looks like there a 3 separate fences, each with one electrified wire (the are insulators in one of the photos).
Kind of overkill, I reckon.
Whoops, bad typing
Anyway, look for the three white insulators in the bottom photo Jen has posted.
Looks like some sort of boa constrictor. Definitely not something you’d find anywhere near Nyngan. Poor thing.
Good one. At least Jennifer’s consistent in the veracity of her scribblings.
I’m not all that surprised that she thinks the images are funny, either.
That is not an Australian snake. It’s quite an upsetting image considering that many animals here and in places like South Africa get caught up and die slow painful deaths in fences.
That snake was killed by electricity generated from a carbon emitting power plant, which is melting glaciers. Isn’t that the real point?
Thanks Nexus.
I should be more skeptical… including of compelling photographs that arrive on a Saturday evening!
Link,
The first couple of links provided by Nexus indicate its a South African rock python. I understand that pythons and boas are closely related and that boas have a South American distribution while pythons can be found in South Africa and Australia?
I think some clarification is needed here. I received by email one of the above photos from an aquaintance.
It was the explanation attached with the photo that had me laughing, so I sent it on to Jen.
The explanation went like this …
“Photo of a snake caught up in an electric fence on a sheep and cattle station near Nyngen NSW.
Some tourists came across the snake caught in an electric fence, being contunually shocked, and very, very angry!
The group wondering what to do, decided to divert the current, cut the wire AND let the snake go! (As you should). When the property owner found out he went ballistic. Besides being upset about his fence the snake had been eating lanbs in the area, and he had been trying to track it for ages. He did not appreciate the help.”
I enjoyed the story of well meaning, helpful tourists and an irate farmer, and passed it on. I had no way of checking the validity of the story, and certainly no indication that the snake in the photo was alrady dead. Looks like this yarn is an urban – or should it be rural – myth.
Shiller, on electric fences, we have something similar to the fence in the above photos in Australia, on the western end of the Dog (dingo) Fence, which stretches for thousands of km. The purpose of the dog fence is to separate dingoes from sheep.
That fence cuts throught the babitat of the southern hairy nosed wombat. A mostly inoffensive creature, built like a small bulldozer. When one wants to, it can push its way through that fence, making a hole big enough to let dogs in. The solution has been to erect a separate low, 2 wire electric fence (live and earth)along the dog fence. This has worked very well. It has also proved an effective deterrant for kangaroos, as wombats try to push, and roos try to wriggle, hrough fences at ground level.
Helen Mahar
Helen,
That is one badass nasty fence. What we got around here is only for very large animals, like cows, horses, etc.
I have to wonder about the voltage. Here we got what they call “weed-cutters.” Weeds leaning against an electric fence ground it out and reduce its efficiency. Weed-cutters run on voltage so high that weeds leaning on the fence are simply sheared off.
I note some discoloration in the snake’s mouth, suggesting edema, and have to wonder if the snake was dead when discovered. In spite of what the tourists may have claimed.
The voltage in these fences can render a man unconscious for ten minutes if there’s contact with the spine, and this snake made a ground circuit continuously through the brain and spinal cord for who knows how long.
Could have been a low-voltage fence, though.
Shiller, the “tourist story” was obviously a beat-up on an arresting photo. Creative writing. I got caught, partly because there is a similar type of fence arrangement not far from where I live.
It is a low electrified fence running alonside the dog fence. This electric fence is remote, so is solar powered with backup batteries (car size). Most economic option. It has a periodic high voltage jolt, lasting a micro-fraction of a second. Just enough to deter, but not injure or render unconscious.
The dog fence itself is about 2 meters high, post,wire and netting. The electrified low adjacent barrier on the western end has deterred large grazing animals from damaging the fence, so it is now lasting longer before needing replacement.
As southern hairy nosed wombats have been increasing in numbers here over the last few decades (the why is another story), some sections of the dog fence have needed the low, electrified barrier on each side.
I agree, the South African fence does look a shocker, but you would need to know more about it, its purpose, and its voltage, before passing judgemt.
Helen,
I’m not passing judgment, it’s just that I’m used to seeing only one strand of wire. With your explanation of the variety of animals supposed to be constrained, it makes more sense.
Standard single-strand fences around here are 125K volts, weed-cutters run more like 175-200K volts.
Only animals I’ve ever seen ’em kill is birds, and that’s if a bird perches on the strand and touches its tail to something very conductive. Not to a weed; it needs to be a steel fencepost or something like that.
But I have to wonder what this thread is actually about. Is this like biodiversity or animal abuse or nature freedom or what? Good fences are common sense, although I’m sure the usual greenies will disagree.
Shiller,
I never gave the category much thought. But if I have to give this thread a category, I think it would come under something like land management. All rural landowners, ie farmers and parks staff, are land managers. We all know that in areas where the public have -or get – access, people, well meaning or otherwise, can be a bit of a wildcard for land managers.
It was amusement at an alleged wildcard result that took my interest. That, and a stunning photo. I think the email I received has been doing the rounds. Bet quite a few people have been caught.
I guess this makes me the better sceptic. I was sent this email some time back, with different comments which I dismissed and only looked at the photo of the poor snake.
The rest of you usual sceptics and denialists should be rebranded delusionists, as per Quiggins recent explanation.
that is one big snake almost as big as mine here in amarica
Makes one wonder why did the snake not get electricuted when going into the farm only when it came out with its belly full was it electricuted.
DONT TELL ME IT WAS THIN GETTING IN.
OMG!!!!!!!!
That is the biggest snake i have ever seen!!!
I am probably gonna have night mares tonight!!!!
Did it die when it got shocked?
Thank’s,
Kayla Keating