Messing with Sai Kung resident Karl Davies is not wise, as a 4.3-metre python discovered. Now nicknamed Kaa-rl after the “Jungle Book” character, the big snake attacked Mr Davies on a bush path above Pak Tam Chung car park. They fought for about 30 seconds, Mr Davies said, with the python biting his calf and slashing his fingers with its fangs.
So Mr Davies went back a few days later. With snake catcher Dave Willott. They found the snake by the path where the attack on Karl and his dogs occurred. The attached video, now viewed hundreds of thousands of times on Facebook, shows how the two men captured the huge reptile weighing 23 kilograms. Kaa-rl now resides at Kadoorie Farm.
Not only is Mr Davies (and Mr Willott) braver than most of us, he is also magnanimous. He has asked that the snake not be killed. An AFCD spokesman said Kaa-rl would be kept at the farm and would not be freed. Whether the snake is put to death depends on whether it adapts to life at Kadoorie. Often snakes can’t handle new environments. “We have no plan to euthanise it so far,” the spokesman said.
Hong Kong snake lover William Sargent said Kaa-rl’s attack on Mr Davies was almost certainly a mistake. “Burmese pythons do not hurt people. The snake would have been after his dogs.”
What do you do if you’re hiking with your dogs in the bush and a python wraps itself around one of them and begins crushing it? Mr Sargent said, “Try to stretch the snake out by uncoiling it from the tail. All the strength of a python is in its coils and it will be relatively easy to handle when it is stretched out.”
Watch the video here:
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