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Boa Constrictor - in Devon!

rynner2

rynner2

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According to BBC SW yesterday, a woman in Ilfracombe, North Devon, discovered an 8' boa constrictor in a tree in her garden. It was taken away by the RSPCA, who said it could have posed a real danger to pets or small children.

No-one has reported losing such an animal (and you'd think they would notice it had gone!), so where did it it come from?

(I tried to find a link, but the Beeb search engine is misbehaving, either giving no returns, or 1000 totally unrelated returns!)
 
Are alien big snakes the next wave for Great Britian?
 
Slightly off thread here...Why are there no snakes in Ireland (apart from that guff about St.Patrick banishing them)? It seems strange that Ireland and Britain have some particular differences in their wildlife. Why are there no moles in Ireland either? The two islands were once joined, were they not?
 
Yeah, but at the risk of being awfully un PC, being Irish, the moles tried to fly and got killed jumping out of trees. :D
 
Quicksilver said:
Yeah, but at the risk of being awfully un PC, being Irish, the moles tried to fly and got killed jumping out of trees. :D
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You mean moles aren't actually meant to fly?....
 
Notice they do not so much 'fly' as 'plummet'.

And it doesn't matter how high you chuck em :blah:
 
But to steer the thing back on track - if your 8' snake escaped and threatened to wreak havoc in the neighbourhood - would you own up?

I have heard of people ditching them when they get too big or they can't afford to feed them anymore.
 
I have heard of people ditching them when they get too big or they can't afford to feed them anymore.
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See? It's exactly how the ABC thing started! Next they breed, and pretty soon you have 30 foot anaconda sightings on the remote highways.

Now I can hardly wait for the alien big bird sightings.
 
Tattoo Ted said:
Now I can hardly wait for the alien big bird sightings.
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Ted, Big Bird isn't real. He's a character on a tv show :D
 
Ted, Big Bird isn't real. He's a character on a tv show
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Yeah, I can just see the official response to ABB sightings: "There is just no way that a 7-foot tall, bright yellow bird could exist undetected for any period of time in the British Isles. Now if you look at the eyewitness sketches, the bird's beak and neck are so small in relation to the rest of its body mass that it would be unable to take in enough food to attain, let alone maintain its huge size. Its a ornithological impossiblity!"
 
Homerjaymc said:
Slightly off thread here...Why are there no snakes in Ireland (apart from that guff about St.Patrick banishing them)? It seems strange that Ireland and Britain have some particular differences in their wildlife. Why are there no moles in Ireland either? The two islands were once joined, were they not?
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As I understand it, the last ice age drove out lots of species from Britain and Ireland. They then recolonised from Southern Europe as the ice receded and the climate became warmer. At some point, the land bridge between Ireland and mainland Britain was covered by water, and no more colonisation was possible. The same goes for the connection between mainland Britain and France.

Obviously species which are more cold tolerant would be able to get a head start, and species which breed faster, or have a larger range, would colonise more quickly.

Reptiles and amphibians in Ireland are: common lizard, smooth newt, common frog and natterjack toad. There has been some discussion over whether current populations of natterjacks and common frogs are the result of recent introductions.
 
Keep repeating after me, Spooky, "It was North Devon, it was North Devon, it was North Devon.


Ok.... getting over it. :eek:

I reckon like a lot of these animals it is probably the case that someone brought it into the country illegally and then released it or maybe it is a pet that got too expensive to keep or got too big.
I think I'd get rid of it before it hit 10' though. :eek:
 
I shouldn't think that they are all that expensive to feed, because IIRC they only eat every few weeks, or months even. But the Vivarium for a creature that big would be costly!
 
Beany said:
As I understand it, the last ice age drove out lots of species from Britain and Ireland....

Reptiles and amphibians in Ireland are: common lizard, smooth newt, common frog and natterjack toad. There has been some discussion over whether current populations of natterjacks and common frogs are the result of recent introductions.
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Thanks for that Beany. That had always puzzled me but I was too lazy to go searching for the reason. When I was about 10 I caught a light green-coloured creature about3" long in a small river. My grandfather said it was a mankeeper, but that's only a folk name. Would that have been a common lizard?
 
Homerjaymc said:
When I was about 10 I caught a light green-coloured creature about3" long in a small river. My grandfather said it was a mankeeper, but that's only a folk name. Would that have been a common lizard?
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If it was in the water, it would be far more likely to be a newt. I've never heard the word 'mankeeper' before, but there are plenty of other folk names for newts.
 
Beany said:
If it was in the water, it would be far more likely to be a newt. I've never heard the word 'mankeeper' before, but there are plenty of other folk names for newts.
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Thanks again. I've heard my grandfather and others say that if you lick a mankeeper/newt/whatever it was, you get the "cure of the burn", meaning you have healing powers when you lick severe burns. I personally don't believe in it, but a lot of people at home have faith in it. I actually had my leg licked by a woman with the "cure" after I spilled a kettle of scalding water on my leg. Can't say it made much difference, but I have no scars today even though I was in pretty bad shape for ages afterwards. Sorry again for taking this waaay off topic...
 
An unnamed woman calmly called the RSPCA when she was confronted by a ten foot boa hanging from a tree in her Ilfracombe garden.
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Sounds like Captain Buttock up to his old "Hide in the trees with my flies undone and pretend to be a snake" trick :D
 
I'd suggest all ppl living in North Devon seal up their catflaps. If these things are looking for heat... *gulp*.
24 inches for a baby? Sounds big to me!
 
It ain't in Devon, and it ain't a boa constrictor, but this story should jack up the snake paranoia!

Lost Dog Found (Hooray!) ...inside a python! (Boo!)
 
Last week it was Boas - now it's adders
Five people bitten by adders in Torbay, Devon
Colin Bath, the curator of reptiles at Paignton Zoo, which lies in the valley said he had never heard of adders there.

"I have seen plenty of grass snakes but in 40 years I have never heard of an adder or of anyone being bitten," he said.

Steve Ayres, Berry Head Country Park ranger, was astonished to hear of so many incidents in one week.

He said: "This is very puzzling.

"I've only ever known of dogs being bitten by adders before.

"I've never heard of one person being bitten never mind five in a week.
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