In the 1970s, the veteran curator of the University of Ghana reptile house in Legon, near Accra, proudly told visitors that he had participated in a study of Gold Coast snakes led by George Cansdale , later London Zoo. and famous for his BBC TV animal shows of the 1950s. “We found,” the curator would say, “seventy different species of snake, of which fourteen are venomous.” Although it may seem that only twenty percent of Ghana’s snakes pose an immediate danger to humans, the majority of encounters seem to involve the venomous species, or at least that is what it seems in hindsight.
In early 1982, the revolutionary government of John Jerry Rawlings mandated that there should be a National Farm Day in which everyone was expected to spend all of their time on the land doing some practical farming task. The Technology Consulting Center (TCC) at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, had recently acquired a large piece of land a few miles from the university campus on which it was intended to demonstrate minimum tillage agriculture. So on the appointed day, all the center’s staff showed up ready to clear the bush and prepare the land for cultivation.
Work began, but it was not long before the cry was raised that a snake had been killed. Fearing that inexperienced farmers would drop their tools, the director shouted that there was only a one in five chance that the snake was poisonous. ‘No, no,’ cried the seasoned farmers, ‘this is dangerous,’ and hastened to bring the corpse in for inspection. In fact, it had been a very dangerous creature, a Gaboon viper with a short, thick body and a horned head, considered the most venomous of all Ghanaian snakes.
The visitor from Gabon met his end off the KNUST campus, but many other venomous snakes made their home on campus and had close encounters with students and staff that ended in no harm to either party. Many of these events involved green and black mambas in transit among the many flowering trees and bushes and with the sole intention of quickly climbing into the copious foliage of their new abode.
One of the most memorable encounters on campus was recounted by Professor Fred Abloh, head of the Building Technology Department. Eager to demonstrate the merits of his low-cost construction techniques, the professor had erected a single-story structure in which he had set up a new office. Shortly after moving in, Fred returned to his office and found a cobra curled up on the chair behind his desk. ‘I turned to run out the door,’ he recounted, ‘but the reptile moved much faster; He was through the door before he could reach her! Needless to say, the professor was soon reinstated in his old office in the permanent multi-story faculty building.
Perhaps the highest chance of holding a bite camera from an encounter with a night adder. These had a reputation for not slipping when disturbed, but staying put. As a consequence, they were often trampled in the dark. Although not usually life-threatening for an adult, a night adder’s bite could seriously injure a small child or an animal. Sadly, his home dog at the university horse society stables died of a night adder bite despite prompt and earnest efforts by the university veterinarian.
Some men have faced greater danger with a happy outcome. At the University of Ghana, the curator of the reptile house used to show visitors the long scar on his right arm. He came from a self-inflicted machete cut. “He was up in a tree trying to catch a green mamba for Mr. Cansdale,” he recounted, “when he turned and bit me on the hand.” So I cut my arm to suck out the poison.
