CANBERRA: Alex White thought he was watching a huge worm writhing in plastic-wrapped lettuce he’d just brought home from a Sydney supermarket — until a snake tongue flicked.
“I kind of completely freaked out when I saw this little tongue come out of its mouth and start flicking around and realized it was a snake because worms don’t have tongues,” White said on Thursday.
“I definitely kind of panicked a bit,” he added.
It was a venomous pale-headed snake that authorities say made an 870-kilometer (540-mile) journey to Sydney from a packing plant in the Australian city of Toowoomba wrapped in plastic with two heads of cos lettuce.
The refrigerated supermarket supply chain likely lulled the cold-blooded juvenile into a stupor until White bought the lettuce at an ALDI supermarket on Monday evening and rode his bicycle home with salad and snake in his backpack.
White and his partner Amelia Neate spotted the snake moving as soon as the lettuce was unpacked onto the kitchen table.
They also noticed the plastic wrapping was torn and that the snake could escape, so they quickly stuffed the reptile with the lettuce into a plastic food storage container.
White phoned the WIRES rescue organization and a snake handler took the snake away that night.
Before the handler arrived, White said WIRES had explained to him: “If you get bitten, you’ve got to go to hospital really quickly.”
ALDI is investigating how a snake could have found its way into a supermarket.
“We’ve worked with the customer and the team at WIRES to identify the snake’s natural habitat, which is certainly not an ALDI store!” the German-based supermarket chain said in a statement.
WIRES reptile coordinator Gary Pattinson said while the snake was less than 20 centimeters (8 inches) long, it was “as venomous as it will ever be.”
Pattinson is caring for the snake until it is returned to Queensland state next week, following the WIRES policy of returning rescued wildlife to where it comes from.
“It’s the first snake I’ve ever had in sealed, packed produce,” Pattinson said. “We get frogs in them all the time.”
Neate, a German immigrant, said her brush with a venomous snake in a Sydney kitchen was a setback in her efforts to assure relatives in Europe that Australia’s notoriously deadly Outback wildlife was nothing to worry about.
“For the last 10 years or so, I’ve told my family at home that Australia’s a really safe country,” Neate said.
“I’ve always said I’m just in the city; it’s totally fine here,” she added.
Sydney man finds snake in lettuce bought at supermarket
https://arab.news/bhpmq
Sydney man finds snake in lettuce bought at supermarket
- Alex White bought lettuce from ALDI supermarket Monday and bicycled home with salad and snake in his backpack
- ALDI is investigating how a venomous pale-headed snake could have found its way into a supermarket
For a quarter of a century, Banksy has contributed to many charitable causes
- As his fame has grown, so too have the sums he raises. Reuters could not confirm how much money the artist has donated
Banksy has consistently used his art to fund charitable causes. As his fame has grown, so too have the sums he raises. Reuters could not confirm how much money the artist has donated. In his book “Banksy: The man behind the wall,” author Will Ellsworth-Jones notes that “there is no Banksy Foundation donating money publicly,” making it impossible to “give a complete picture of what he gives away.” Here are some of Banksy’s donations:
2002: Banksy collaborated with Greenpeace to produce artwork for the environmental-action charity’s “Save or Delete” campaign to highlight the dangers of deforestation: It showed characters from Disney’s animated film ‘The Jungle Book,’ tied up and blindfolded in a denuded patch of jungle.
2007: Banksy took his annual “Santa’s Ghetto” pop-up art show and 20 street artists to the West Bank city of Bethlehem, donating proceeds to local youth projects.
2008: Banksy released a series of 299 signed prints of his mural depicting children saluting a Tesco supermarket bag. The sale was conducted as a lottery. According to a published report, Banksy donated the £24,406.61 raised to Sightsavers, an international NGO that provides free eye operations.
2010: Banksy pledged to donate all royalties from 175 prints of his “Choose Your Weapon” mural of a hooded man holding a dog painted in the style of fellow street artist Keith Haring to Russian art collective Voina. Two members of the collective were in a St. Petersburg jail at the time for taking part in an anti-corruption protest. That year, Banksy allowed Moorfields Eye Hospital in London to remove and auction the 2006 “Gangsta Rat” piece he painted on the side of its building. The piece was sold to raise money for the hospital.
2013: In a month-long residency in New York, Banksy bought a beat-up oil painting from a thrift store for $50 and altered the piece by adding a Nazi officer admiring the landscape it depicted. He then covertly returned the doctored work to the charity shop and included a note authenticating it as a Banksy. The charity, Housing Works, sold the piece at auction for $615,000.
2014: A struggling youth club in Bristol, the Broad Plain Boys Club, found a Banksy mural on its doorway. “Mobile Lovers” showed a couple embracing but distracted by their mobile phones. When it became clear it was a Banksy, the local council tried to claim it. Banksy clarified that he intended the piece as a gift to the club, which was facing closure. The club sold the piece for over £400,000 and used the money to stay afloat.
2015: Banksy enlisted dozens of artists to help create his theme park, “Dismaland.” After the park closed, he donated the set pieces and building materials used to create the alternative theme park to “The Jungle,” a camp for migrant refugees in Calais, northern France.
2017: Banksy opened “The Walled Off Hotel” in the West Bank city of Bethlehem. Banksy financed the project independently. The hotel has attracted thousands of visitors and its website notes that any profits will go to local projects.
2019: Banksy created a shop called “Gross Domestic Product” in London. The welcome mats he sold there were produced by women in Greek refugee camps using life vests that washed up on shore. Proceeds were donated to Love Welcomes, a group supporting refugees in the camps.
2020: At the peak of the first wave of COVID-19, Banksy unveiled a piece inside Southampton General Hospital that paid tribute to Britain’s National Health Service workers. It showed a boy who had discarded his Batman and Spiderman dolls in favor of a superhero nurse doll. Banksy donated it to the NHS. A year later, the piece fetched £16.8 million at auction, a Banksy record at that time. The proceeds were used to “support the wellbeing of NHS University Southampton Hospital staff and patients,” according to Christie’s. That summer, Banksy also announced he had funded, equipped, and decorated a former French naval vessel to serve as a migrant rescue boat in the Mediterranean Sea. The ship was rechristened the MV Louise Michel, named after a 19th century French anarchist. According to a website for the boat, it has rescued hundreds of migrants. Conservatively, the vessel costs tens of thousands of dollars to operate each month.
2022: A few weeks after Banksy created seven pieces in Ukraine, the artist put a limited edition of 50 prints on sale, priced at £5,000 each. They were offered via the Legacy of War Foundation’s website. The sale raised £250,000 for the NGO.
