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16 Mar, 2024
công việc kinh doanh thuận lợi cho người bắt rắn ở Úc, thời gian ngủ đông của loài bò sát rút ngắn lại do trái đất nóng lên
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Business has never been so good for Stuart McKenzie, who runs a snake-catching service (dịch vụ bắt rắn) in the Sunshine Coast, a verdant enclave (vùng đất xanh tươi) along miles of pristine beach in the vast Australian state of Queensland. On the busiest days, he can receive more than 35 calls about troublesome snakes.
Queensland is home to the largest number of snake species in Australia — about 120. Of those, two-thirds are venomous and a handful are deadly. Throughout Australia, fatalities from snake bites remain extremely rare — about two a year — and in Queensland, the reptiles are simply a part of life.
On one recent job, a four-foot brown snake — the world’s second-most venomous snake (rắn độc) species, despite the understated name — was wedged (chen giữa) between a fly screen and a window, and needed to be taken out. More straightforward was a request to remove a nonvenomous carpet python, its body intricately patterned with whorls and swirls, coiled in the depths of a shed. (Snake removal fees start at 154 Australian dollars, or around $100.)
With the population of the Sunshine Coast projected to increase more than 50 percent to about half a million people in the 25 years to 2041, deforestation is happening at speed. More housing is being built, and many snakes who once dwelled in native bush land (đất bụi bản địa) are finding sanctuary — and a reliable source of food and water — in homes intended for humans.
Unwell snakes receive care at the nearby Australia Zoo, founded by the conservationist (nhà bảo tồn) Steve Irwin. On a recent Thursday, Mr. McKenzie brought three injured pythons to the clinic. Two accepted an inspection with relative grace, but the third lashed across the floor, motioning its head as if to bite Mr. McKenzie’s left knee as he held its tail steady in his hand.
In his current job for the last seven years, Mr. McKenzie previously worked as a reptile handler (người xử lý bò sát) at the Australia Zoo. Since childhood, he has had blue-tongued lizards as pets, but he was initially wary of snakes and had little interest in handling them. Only after working with them every day at the zoo, he said, did he think: “Geez, these things are actually really cool.”
source: nytimes,
Tags: businessHồng Nhung
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