Grisly discovery at bottom of ancient well near Aussie outback town

Yahoo

24-04-2025

A bushwalker has made a grisly discovery at the bottom of an ancient well in a tiny Australian gold mining town. Among the broken bricks and twisted metal were dozens of bones believed to have come from the bodies of kangaroos that had fallen into the uncovered "deathtrap".
Like a scene from the Indiana Jones movies, what's believed to be a deep, abandoned well was also teeming with live reptiles, including venomous snakes. And that's why veteran wildlife rescuer Manfred Zabinskas was called on for help.
'The person who found the well indicated there were two eastern brown snakes, shingleback lizards and a goanna in there,' the Five Freedoms Animal Rescue founder told Yahoo News.
Getting to the edge of the well earlier this month was the easy part. It was a short 30-metre walk across a dry paddock off the main road into Bet Bet, 180km northwest of Melbourne. But getting inside was difficult and required Zabinskas' specialised equipment and skill-set.
'The well wasn't ridiculously deep, but the top access was very dangerous. The ladder was long enough but the rim was very steep and the grass around it was slippery. You could see why animals would just slide in and get trapped,' he said.
Determined not to fall, Zabinskas put on his harness and then abseiled down the ladder. But he was not prepared for what confronted him inside.
'There were two bodies still in the process of decay. It was pretty horrible, it stunk. I checked under the rotting carcasses to check nothing was hiding under them, so that was a bit yuck' he said.
'There was also an assortment of dried-out bones spread across the floor, enough to make up a third body.'
For the next two hours, Zabinskas worked to lift heavy debris in search of the reptiles that had been spotted in the hole.
'I realised it was going to be a big job and I was going to have to do a lot of digging. There was a big steel stillage that almost broke my back, emptying it to tip it over,' he said.
Underneath, Zabinskas discovered two trapped legless lizards, and nearby he found a shingleback lizard. Then hiding between two bricks he spotted the scales of one eastern brown snake.
After securing the four reptiles inside bags, he was faced with grabbing an emaciated and frustrated sand goanna that was in urgent need of care.
'I love rescuing all animals, but I'm very fond of reptiles and I was driven to be able to save them,' Zabinskas said.
Despite describing the well as an 'animal deathtrap', Zabinskas doesn't want it filled in because of its historical importance.
'It's ancient, and it was made beautifully. We'd be losing heritage and cultural history,' he said.
'It needs to be made safe, and there are ways of doing that. Rather than filling it in, I'd rather see it fenced and a protective cover put over it.'
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As of Wednesday, all the reptiles recovered from the well were reportedly recovering well in the care of Reptiles Victoria. Rescue group Wildlife Victoria is understood to be investigating how the hole can be made safe.
In the meantime, members of the public are urged to stay away from the well. Zabinskas was only able to locate one of the two eastern brown snakes, and there have been sightings of the other one since.
With winter approaching, the heat-dependent reptile will soon go into brumation, a state of dormancy similar to hibernation. Rescue crews are debating whether to pull the animal out of the hole, or leave it be until springtime when it will need to feed again.
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