Mr Press said that he was overwhelmed by the number of participants at the clinic, held at the North East Veterinary Clinic.

``The four-hour course goes through a fair bit of what to do around snakes, snake behaviour, what venom does to your body, first aid and the like,'' he said.

``The course ran about half an hour over time because of the interest shown and the number of questions they asked.

``There were 22 of them and they came from Swansea right through to Gladstone.

``Even more impressive, is that eight of those students want to continue on and do snake management - how to relocate snakes.

``We've just received permission to teach snake awareness.''

Mr Press said that he was often called to remove snakes and a week ago was called on to remove a snake from under the rear seat of a car.

``It crawled into the seat and when the dog that was sitting on the seat jumped out, movement in the springs caught the snake and it could not get out on its own,'' he said.

``It took about 45 minutes to undo the four little bolts holding the seat, with the snake thrashing around underneath, and safely remove the snake and about 45 seconds to screw the seat back in.''