WILDLIFE carers have been kept busy with a number of house calls of the slithery variety because of increased development.

Chris Dehaan, of the Rainforest Habitat Wildlife Sanctuary at Port Douglas, said although the number of snakes they had removed was on par with last year, the calls were received over a much shorter period.

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"Winter certainly came later this year and was pretty much over in a matter of weeks," he said.

"When the onset of cold hit we were getting a lot of calls from people who found snakes coming into the house to try to keep warm."

The Habitat staff have plenty of personal experience, saying they had seen a huge increase in the number of pythons and tree snakes in the park, possibly as a result of the large bat colony which moved into the area.

"Primarily, most of our call-outs have been to homes in Port Douglas, so increased building activity may be flushing some of the snakes out," he said.

"We always go out when called but try to really talk to the people who have snakes in their house.

"It should be as much about education as anything else because about 99.9 per cent of the animals we see are completely harmless pythons or tree snakes."

Mission Beach naturalist Adrian Walker said the number of call-outs he had received to the southern beach-side town this month was unusually low.

"Normally they are up at about 15-20 but I’ve only had three this month," he said.

"My busiest time is the breeding season, but I do agree that whenever there is a building project close by I do tend to see a lot more snakes."

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