A homeowner in the Paradise Valley area was working late on Friday night to fix the plug/pump for his garden pond. With both hands deep inside the enclosed pump housing, he suddenly realized a black mamba was just centimetres away from him.
He wisely left it alone (it stayed still, hoping he’d go away) and didn’t want to disturb a rescuer at night, so he called Nick Evans (the well-known KZN snake rescuer) first thing Saturday morning around 06:30. Evans arrived, opened the top of the pump, spotted the mamba hiding underneath part of the system, and carefully extracted it using tongs to grab the neck area before securing it by hand. The snake apparently had a recent rat-sized meal (rats love hanging around pond pumps, so free pest control, as Nick put it) and “peed” all over him during the process, but it was safely relocated.
Nick was impressed by how chilled the homeowner was — “I don’t come across many people as chilled out about the presence of a mamba as him” — and used the incident to highlight that unprovoked black mamba bites are very rare. The snake wasn’t aggressive; it was just trying to stay hidden.
Black mambas are common in the Durban area (especially around places like Paradise Valley and Westville), and they often end up in gardens, pumps, or pools chasing rodents. If you’re in KZN and spot one, best to keep your distance and call a professional like Nick Evans (072 809 5806) rather than trying to handle it yourself.
Crazy way to start the weekend, hey? Glad everyone (including the mamba) came out fine. If this is from a specific post or video you saw, feel free to share more details!
