PAPUA NEW GUINEA SNAKEBITE PROJECT
RECCE EXXONMOBIL

In the early morning we drove out to the huge LNG Plant Site - part of the PNG LNG Project operated by ExxonMobil instalation - half-an-hour west of Port Moresbyto meet the site's "snake man"Jim Buckley, a colleague of Dave Matthews who I had met previously at Frog Pond. Jim, whose job it is to manage and conserve the site's snake population, was waiting for us the gate, and he passed us through Security. You cannot just amble onto an oil instalation saying "Hey we would like to come in to catch some snakes!" There are a great many arrangments and permissions that have to be obtained beforehand, even if you are planning to be removing highly venomous snakes from the site.

Jim had made all the necessarry arrangements and we were expected, and after receiving visitor passes we drove our two vehicles, Dave's Troopie and my Patrol, to the Snake Removal office. In his small office Dave showed us cages containing Papuan carpet pythons (Morelia spilota) awaiting release off-site, one of the commonest snakes encountered on-site. He also showed us a freezer containing some of the less fortunate pythons and other snakes that had been accidentally killed on this huge site bustling with heavy plant and other vehicles.

Snake catchers (l-r): Owen Paiva (AVRU), Maraga Lohia (EHL), Mark O'Shea (AVRU), David Williams (AVRU), Jim Buckley (EHL), Charlie Nou (EHL), Ben Bande (AVRU) and Julious Jacobs(AVRU).

He then took us on a tour of the huge facility, pointing out where he had encountered memorable snakes, a big taipan here, a Papuan blacksnake there. Some of the best snake locations included the Plant's Golf Course, a 9-hole course for staff which had the off-putting reputation of being home to numerous snakes, and one particular corner where 17 of the 18 Papuan blacksnakes (Pseudechis papuanus) seen in the last three years had been found. This was where the female that succumbed to her injuries had come from, but Jim assured is he had seen a larger specimen out there several times. It was this wetland corner of the site that particularly interested us. We only had two Papuan blacksnakes in the Snek Haus, both males, one from the Edevu road and one from Varirata National Park, and with so many having been sighted on the LNG Plant Site we were anxious to capture at least one, unjured and healthy. The only herps in evidence now it was getting hot were Dusky skinks (Emoia obscura).

Dusky skink, Emoia obscura

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