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Fears that children may be at risk from colony of rare constrictor reptiles living along central London riverbank (12 May 2014)

Date: 12/05/2014
Duncan Lewis, Legal News Solicitors, Fears that children may be at risk from colony of rare constrictor reptiles living along central London riverbank

Residents of Camden in London have reported a colony of six-foot long Aesculapian snakes living along the banks of Regent’s Canal at Camden Lock.

The snakes are thought to have descended from a group which may have escaped from nearby London Zoo or a building owned by the Inner London Education Authority decades ago.

The snakes are classed as being of “high concern” by government advisory body, the London Invasive Species Initiative (Lisi). The reptiles are currently thought to be feeding off rats and birds around the canal, but are capable of killing a small domestic animal such as a dog.

When young they look similar to a young grass snake but can grow to lengths of around 2 metres.

Lisi is calling for the reptiles to be eradicated, as it is thought they could cause permanent harm to the local ecosystem.

The area they are inhabiting is popular with families, shoppers and diners.

Karen Harper from Lisi said that the Aesculapian snakes species was listed in the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 – and, as a result, it is illegal to allow the species to spread or escape into the wild.

“At present there is limited information on what affects the species may have on our local ecosystems,” she told local publisher, the Camden New Journal.

Aesculapian snakes are the third largest species of snake in Europe – but despite the fact it is a predatory species not native to the UK, some reptile experts and ecologists are calling for the colony of around 30 snakes at Camden to be protected.

Dr Wolfgang Wuster – a snake venom expert and senior lecturer of the School of Biological Science at Bangor University in North Wales – told Camden New Journal that any attempt to eradicate the Aesculapian snake “would require justification of resources to be devoted to an almost certainly non-problematic, introduced species with little prospects of spread”.

Dr Wuster currently works with the only other known colony of Aesculapian snakes in Britain, which are located near to the Welsh Mountain Zoo in Colwyn Bay.

Responding to calls for the Camden colony of Aesculapian snakes to be eradicated, he said that there are already “far more damaging species already out there” – and added that climate change meant the UK could not preserve its countryside “like some kind of pre-industrial, vicarage garden”.
“From a wider and more philosophical point of view, we should ask ourselves what we can really conserve,” said Dr Wuster.

“Given the near certainty of massive, global climate change over the next century, the idea that we can treat the UK fauna and flora like some kind of pre-industrial, vicarage garden – and preserve it forever without any changes – is simply farcical.”

The Aesculapian snake takes its name for the Greek God of Medicine – the universal symbol for medicine is a snake coiled round a rod.

The Aesculapian snake feeds on rodents and birds and can climb – it may rest on the branches of trees when the weather is warm.

The snakes also make their home in sheds and under woodpiles – or even under roads – to keep warm.

They lay their eggs in tree stumps in June/July and the eggs hatch in September – usually between five and eight young are born to each adult female who lays eggs.

Aesculapian snakes generally are not thought to be dangerous to humans – although they kill by constriction and there are concerns among some residents in Camden that, because the reptiles are able to kill a small dog, small children in the heavily populated area could be at risk from attack by the adult snakes.

There is also the possibility the colony of snakes may spread along the banks of Regent’s Canal – which runs through areas such as Maida Vale, Regent’s Park, Islington and Hackney – with the riverbank being a popular walk for families with small children and dog walkers.

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