Old video of snake rescue on South African shore misleads online
- Published on November 27, 2025 at 11:33
- 3 min read
- By AFP South Africa
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With the holiday season around the corner, the coastal city of Durban in South Africa is gearing up for its annual influx of tourists. Some of them may be put off by a video showing a black mamba snake on the shore of a Durban beach that is currently circulating on social media, leading many users to believe it is recent. But this is misleading; the incident occurred more than five years ago.
“Black Mamba reportedly went for a swim at Durban Beach,” reads the caption of a Facebook reel published on November 24, 2025.
The reel was shared by South African road safety awareness group Arrive Alive to its more than 470,000 followers, accompanied by a link to an article on its website about snake safety (archived here).
The clip shows a snake being pushed ashore by the ocean waves, before being captured and placed into a clear, rectangular box, as people look on.
Some social media users commenting on the post appeared to believe the footage is recent, with one writing, “Durban trip cancelled.”
“This is the second time a mamba is found at a beach,” wrote another user.
Black mambas are common in Durban, a coastal city in South Africa, though they are typically found inland (archived here).
However, the beach video in question is over five years old.
Durban 2020
A keyword search for “black mamba swimming in Durban beach” led to local media reports on an incident in August 2020 featuring videos of the same incident shot from different angles, including here and here (archived here and here).
South Africa’s national broadcaster SABC published a video of the scene on YouTube on August 26, 2020, with the title: “Black Mamba rescued on beach”.
The black mamba was reportedly rescued off the coast of Addington Beach in Durban (archived here).
It was the second dangerous snake to be rescued from a Durban beach after a yellow-bellied sea snake was found about 15 kilometres away the previous month (archived here).
The South African Association for Marine Biological Research (SAAMBR) shared an image from the rescue in a Facebook post at the time (archived here).
According to the post, the team rescued the 2.47 metre long snake, noting that the species is “uncommonly found along the coastal belt, preferring deep valley areas with thick vegetation”.
The same individuals in the circulating clip can be seen in the photo published by SAAMBR.
Carl Schloms, the lead herpetologist at uShaka Marine World, confirmed to AFP Fact Check that the video is old.
“I was actually off that day and one of our herpetologists, Craig, who was working in the aquarium, went and caught it”, Schloms said on November 24, 2025, adding that it is “very rare” to see a black mamba on the beach.
Craig Smith is seen being interviewed 35 seconds into the 2020 SABC news report.
Schloms said that in the 2020 incident, the snake had been spotted by fishermen on a nearby pier about a week prior, likely feeding on the rats, and when it later washed up on the beach, the team “knew straight away it was the same snake.”
He added that while black mambas are good swimmers, saltwater is not their preferred environment, and that the snake “was exhausted”, making it easier to capture.
Black mambas prefer dry habitats such as arid woodland, valleys, rocky hills, and savannah, making sightings on the coast rare (archived here).
Schloms said they monitored the animal for about a week before releasing it.
Snake rescuer Nick Evans also told AFP Fact Check the incident was “very, very strange”, suggesting the snake “may have come off a ship at the harbour”.
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