Perth urban wetlands home to hundreds of tiger snakes, researcher finds

Damian Lettoof is completing a PhD at Curtin University on the health of tiger snakes, and to do that he needs to catch them — lots of them.

In the past three years, he’s caught more than 500 tiger snakes at four urban wetlands around Perth with the most found at a lake in Perth’s western suburbs.

“I have been catching them so I can measure their body condition and count parasites to see if populations differ in health and if that relates to urbanisation, ” he told ABC Radio Perth Breakfast.

“I give each snake a unique scale clip so I can see how they change over time.

“We find the most snakes around Herdsman Lake, right near the city.

“Bibra Lake would be our second biggest site, and then I work up at Joondalup and Yanchep as well.