Snakes have already conquered land and sea in Ibiza. A user of the Facebook group ‘Ibiza Winter Residents’ has shared a video in which you can see a a snake swimming, just like any other swimmer in a cove of the island.
Stefanie Daub shared the video along with a message: “They said going out on a boat was a good idea… if you like swimming with snakes“. The woman, who was out sailing with friends this weekend, discovered the snake in the ses Balandres area.
“They swim the 700 or 1,000 meters to the island of ses Margalides to eat lizards and peregrine falcon eggs. I pray that the big hawks have killed it. I pray that the birds of the islets are protected from the snakes that swim in. How horrible!” reads one of the comments to the publication. “It is very important to kill it in the water, why? Because Ibiza has exactly 24 subspecies of lizards. If this snake reaches an islet it will easily devour all of them,” it notes.
“Since when do snakes swim in the sea?” another user asks in a comment. “What a danger!”.
“I don’t want to go in the water anymore,” says another.
The horseshoe snake (Hemorrhois hippocrepis) poses no risk to humans (its bite is not poisonous, although it is annoying), on a threat to the environment and the ecosystem, since it they are endangering an endemic species, the pitiusa lizard (Podarcis Pityusensis), which is also an icon of Ibiza and Formentera.
For the full article, please visit Diario de Ibiza website here.