Life in Sydney a constant battle for survival

Press, 28 July 1987, Page 11

Life in Sydney a constant battle for survival

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ROBERT WOODWARD

NZPA-Reuter Sydney

When Australians discover you are going to live in Sydney, they wax lyrical about the sun, the sea and the surf.

They forget to tell you about the spiders, snakes and sharks which make some foreigners view life as a constant battle for survival.

Waking up to yet another sunny day you decide to take breakfast on the patio under a clear blue sky. But beware; this could be a fatal move. The garden bench, wet with morning dew, is an ideal lair for the redback, a venomous spider whose liking for the underside of lavatory seats is welldocumented.

A spot of gardening, perhaps? Equally dangerous.

The funnel-web, the most lethal of the 30 types of poisonous Australian spiders, makes its home in outside sheds, gardening boots and piles of leaves.

Okay, so let us go for a walk to the beach and have a swim. Another bad idea.

The wood you pass through could well hide one of Australia’s 20 deadly snakes. If you were really unlucky, you might step on a small snake which scientists estimate has enough venom to kill 200,000 mice. Make it to the beach and your troubles might be only just beginning. If the sharks do not get you, then there is a fighting chance either the blueringed octOpus, the stone fish or the box jellyfish will. Scientists reckon Australia has one venomous creature for every day of the year except Christmas Day, Easter Sunday and Australia Day. The grand total of “nasties” was raised to 361 recently when Dr Robert Raven, Queensland Museum’s curator of spiders, proudly announced he had found yet another killer, the brown widow spider. . It was probably imported from South Africa or America, he said, where it thrives in cities, its favoured habitat being the inside of cars. Even before this news, life in Australia for an arachniphobe (someone

scared of spiders) was still a living nightmare. Scientists, who gave up naming the different types after reaching 2000, reckon there are about 10,000 different varieties of our eight-legged friends out there.

The deadly funnel-web is restricted to the Sydney area where it has killed 12 people since the 19205. The more prevalent redback has caused the early demise of a similar number throughout Australia since records began. About 500 people a year are bitten by redbacks but snakes cause the hospitalisation of some 3000 Australians annually.

Deaths are rare because of effective vaccines but young children are particularly at risk because of their lack of fear, doctors said.

Doctors have some helpful advice for parents whose children have been bitten by a taipan, the longest venomous snake in the country. Capture the little beauty and bring it along for positive identification, they suggest.

While Australians are aware of the dangers posed by wildlife on land,

they seem to have an almost fatalistic disregard of the hazards underwater.

Swimming and surfing are so much a part of Australian life that fear of unseen danger is left on the beach along with the towel and zinc suntan cream.

In northern Australia, crocodiles have eaten nine people in the last 17 months, but locals still insist on swimming and fishing in waters known to be infested with the reptiles. Bathers frolic off the beaches of northern and eastern Australia during the summer months with scarcely a thought for the box jellyfish or sea wasp, which has killed more than 70 people since being identified 30 years ago.

Authorities close beaches when shoals of the jellyfish, which can kill within three minutes, are spotted. But if the danger of being stung is high, most Australians just take along a bottle of vinegar, a fairly effective antidote to the poison, or wear body tights. Other seaborne dangers include the stone fish,

which hides in the sand and packs a powerful punch, about 30 types of poisonous sea snakes and the garfish, whose spearlike beak can cause horrific internal injuries to swimmers.

Dangers exist in even the most innocuous situations. A diver recently found a beautiful conch shell on the seabed and tucked it inside his wetsuit.

Unfortunately the shell contained a venomous blue-ringed octopus which showed its displeasure by stinging the diver. He was rushed to hospital by helicopter before paralysis could set in.

Sharks are the only creatures which draw a shudder from the average Sydneysider, and urban legends about their prevalence and huge appetites abound.

But, in reality, the risk of being attacked is thankfully quite small due to the nets which protect most of the city’s 60km of beaches. There were 20 attacks in Australia in the decade to 1980, of which only five were fatal, while Sydney has not had a fatal shark attack since the 19305.