A brown snake that got its head trapped in a soft drink can has prompted a Canberra expert to urge people to throw rubbish in bins and not on the road - where snakes get entangled in it.
It comes after a daring rescue of the snake using a pooper scooper and then a pliers to cut the animal free.
"Please folks, let's learn from these animals, and let the desperate suffering of this one inspire change. Put your rubbish in the bin," Gavin Smith said on his social media site.
"Lets minimise our footprint. We need to look after our precious environment and fauna better."
Dr Smith is an academic at the ANU who also catches snakes in Canberra under his ACT Snake Removals enterprise.
He was contacted by a member of the public - Tiffany O'Regan - who spotted the live snake with its head embedded in the can on the side of a busy dual carriageway.
"Rather than turn away and drive off, she parked her car safely and called a wildlife rescue service to save the snake," the academic Tweeted.
"Tiffany stayed with the snake until I got there. Not only that, Tiffany also prevented it from dying as the stressed and disorientated animal started to cross the dual carriageway with the can stuck on his head.
"She improvised and quickly grabbed a Pooper Scooper from her car and, risking her own safety, managed to gently pull the snake off the road and back onto the shoulder as cars thundered past."
Where some would have killed the beast, the snake-lover decided to cut the metal way. The operation succeeded and the snake, with a clear injury from the can opening around it, was lured into a bag ready to be freed later.
"What an effort, Tiffany!" Dr Smith tweeted. "Thank you so much for saving the snake from certain death and giving it a second chance, it owes you its life and you, my friend, are a true wildlife warrior!"
Gavin Smith is a sociologist who is studying the routes of brown snakes in Canberra. He tracks them with cameras and embedded GPS transmitters.
He's a big fan of the animals and gets dismayed when people mistreat them.
"Snakes are incredibly communicative," Dr Smith says. "People see them as dumb and inert, but they are curious when they become calm.
"They have a softness."
