02 Mar 2020

The Director of Maun Snake Capture, Mr Dick George has urged members of the community to conserve snakes, saying they play an important role in saving people’s lives.

Mr George said this during a snake class event, which was held in Maun recently, to teach the community about the importance of snakes, handling snake bites and different species of snakes found in Botswana. 

Mr George, is a professional snake handler, who obtained his qualifications from the African Reptiles and Venom School in South Africa.

Mr George started his organisation, Maun Snake Capture in 2018, with the aim of saving snakes and people’s lives, as he was concerned about the increasing number of people who lose their lives due to snake bites.

He explained that snakes played an important role in the ecosystem, as they controlled pests, therefore the community should avoid killing them.

Mr George said anti-venom extracted from the snakes was also used to treat snake bites and cancer, hence snakes played a very important role in saving people’s lives.

“My plan is to conserve many snakes and have a snake park, so that I can supply the government with anti-venom as this will reduce costs of buying it from  other countries,” he said.

Mr George also urged government to support him as he also intended to work with medical practitioners to teach them about different species of snakes.

He noted that some health practitioners lacked knowledge about them hence putting  snake bites patients at risk.

“I am currently training some of the community members how to capture snakes as a way of sharing my knowledge with them,” Mr George said.

He also called on stakeholders to support his organisation through sponsorship, noting that the snake capturing team had no medical aid coverage, which put them at risk. 

One of the participants, a student from Delta Waters School Conservation Club, Theo Barataefe, said he gained a lot of knowledge on the conservation of snakes.

He said he would share the knowledge with other students, so that they could realise the value of snakes in human lives. Ends