Friday, April 30, 2004
From Left Field
'He looked like a big white tree limb'
Imagine looking for a four-foot snake and finding one that's eight feet-plus in length.
Or, imagine taking a leislurely stroll with four children and discovering an eight-foot python sitting along a trail!
When someone called the sheriff's department last Saturday afternoon and said they had seen a snake near the covered bridge east of Ceylon, deputies Larry Butler Jr. and Shane Rekeweg, along with Reserve Deputy Greg Logan, were sent to the scene.
No one had any idea of the "adventure" about to unfold.
"Some guy (and four children) were walking along a trail near the bridge, saw it (the snake) and called the department," Logan said later. "He described it as about four feet long and brown, and we just thought it was a big brown snake.
"So the three of us went down there to get it, but we couldn't find anything. We were just about ready to leave when I saw it. 'Here it is,' I remember yelling.
"I'll tell you, he was a lot bigger than four feet. He looked like a big white tree limb lying there," Logan said.
He, or it, was lots bigger than four feet, alright. In fact, the Albino Burmese Python was approximately eight feet, two inches in length.
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"He was moving a little bit, but sort of like he didn't know what was going on; it may have been the cold," Logan recalled. "The other guys didn't want anything to do with it, but I put a thing on its head and grabbed it by the neck, then told them to help me put it in a sack.
"They didn't especially want to touch it. Butler told me to put my (bulletproof) vest on, so then if it would start to wrap around me, he could shoot it," Logan laughed. "After we got it in the sack, we washed and disinfected our hands."
Butler isn't bashful about telling you his feelings. "I'm not a big snake fan. I grew up around Decatur and haven't seen many snakes. I was the last one to touch it. I wasn't really up for it (handling the snake).
"Greg got this thing on its head and said, 'Okay, who's gonna pick up the tail end?' I looked at Shane and said, 'Not me!'
Butler also admitted that had he been alone when it was found, the snake no doubt wouldn't have survived. "I've got to say, had I been by myself, I probably would have shot it.
"We were creeping along the woods, like the Crocodile Hunter," the deputy laughed. "All of a sudden, Greg started yelling, 'Here it is! Here it is!'"
Could have been bigger
The snake was eventually turned over to a man in the Magley area who once had more than 100 snakes of his own.
"I think someone probably just dumped it there (in the covered bridge area)" Logan said. "It probably got too big so it was just dumped; I imagine he would eat quite a bit.
"You could tell he was used to being handled, or he was just slowed by the cold. He had a scab on his head so I don't know if maybe a dog got him or what."
The man who took in the snake told Butler that, in fact, the snake may well have spent the winter there. "He said it was malnourished, that there was a good chance it had crawled in a hole and stayed there all winter," Butler explained.
"It was about four feet around, but the guy said had it been fed properly, it would have been eight feet around."
Geneva Marshall Rob Johnson agrees that the snake had in all likelihood been someone's pet. "Someone definitely turned it loose, and I don't think it had been out there too long," Johnson said. "It was a cold and windy day and he couldn't have been out there too long or he would have been dead.
"We have some ideas on where he might have come from."
For all the jokes, all the laughs attached to the incident, Butler offered a thoughtful, somber point: "You know, a lot of people fish in that area; some let their kids run in the woods. We just can't have something like that (python) around. I mean, little kids ... think about it."
Burmese a popular pet
The Burmese Python originates from Burma, Vietnam and Thailand, These days, virtually every Burmese in the pet trade is captive bred, according to information found on a Web site.
In fact, one provider of information said the Burmese may be the closest a person can come to truthfully labeling a species of snake as domesticated.
The species comes in numerous colors and patterns and ranges in price from about to several hundred thousand dollars for the newest mutation.
The Burmese is described on this Web site as "calm and friendly, eats like a pig, is easy to breed and beautiful to look at. "
But the biggest drawback, it adds, is the snake's size. Given time and plenty of food, the Burmese, especially females, will routinely reach 17 to 18 feet in length and weigh over 200 pounds. Males normally end up in the 9- to 12-foot range.