Update: As many commenters have noted, the snake was not a Burmese Python, as was stated by the Peninsula Humane Society, it was actually a boa constrictor. Here's our follow-up.
Days after a gigantic snake was discovered beneath a car parked outside a Bay Area school, authorities are no closer to figuring out where it came from or how it got there.
According to the Merc, at 3:13 p.m. last Friday, a woman passing Pescadero Elementary and Middle School saw what appeared to be a giant snake curled beneath a car parked outside the school.
She called the San Mateo County Sheriff's Department, which sent two deputies to wrangle a 7-foot-long, 4.5 inch wide, 40 pound Burmese python boa constrictor (see update on snake's ethnic heritage here) out from under the car, into a plastic bin, and to the Peninsula Humane Society.
Burmese pythons are some of the largest snakes on earth, according to National Geographic. They've been known to grow as long as 23 feet long, with "a girth as big as a telephone pole" and weighing 200 pounds.
The pythons are indigenous to the jungles and grassy marshes of Southeast Asia, and have recently been spreading in the Florida Everglades at a remarkable rate, likely due to "accidental and/or intentional releases by pet owners," the National Park Service says. This April, in fact, a 12-foot, 120-pound representative of the species was captured in South Florida less than a month ago after allegedly "gobbling up neighborhood cats."
Outside Florida, however, you wouldn't routinely expect to see these snakes in the North American wild, especially not in the sleepy seaside community of Pescadero, a small San Mateo County town about 17 miles south of Half Moon Bay. So how did this serpent end up at the school?
“It probably was someone’s pet. It’s part of a bigger picture that animals like this snake, turtles, lizards and even exotic birds, they’re legal to own and the attraction is no one else on the block has them,” Peninsula Humane Society (PHS) spokesperson Scott Delucchi told the San Mateo Daily Journal.
The snake appears to have an "aggravating skin condition" and is poorly socialized, Delucchi told the Merc.
"Since the snake has been in our care, it has been borderline aggressive (hissing and attempting to strike) which could be due to a few reasons...It could simply be a pet snake that has not been handled-socialized or it could be on the grumpy side due to its physical condition," Delucchi said.
The PHS can't make a determination on the snake's fate until it's been in their care for four days, after which it becomes their property. From there, the snake could be made available for adoption by the agency, be sent to a reptile rescue center for their care and eventual placement, or "we could determine that the snake's medical condition and/or lack of socialization make it a poor candidate for placement," Delucchi says, which is shelter-speak for euthanasia.
Ideally, however, the PHS would like to get in contact with the snake's owner to figure out what happened there. Perhaps the snake just wandered out and a happy reunion is around the corner, the owner embracing the serpent as its hisses turn to...whatever noises snakes make when they are happy. Therefore, anyone with information about this python and its likely guardian is urged to contact the Peninsula Humane Society at 650-685-8510.
[San Jose Mercury News]
[San Mateo Daily Journal]