Python found on roadside

[faze]

Date: Apr 07, 2004 - 11:59 AM
10-foot Fluffy still only a baby


Friday, April 02, 2004


BY BRIAN T. MURRAY
Star-Ledger Staff

It's not unusual for people to walk an animal into the Petco in Old Bridge and seek advice on its care. But what a visitor pulled out of his backpack last week was not your average pet.

"It was a big snake, but I didn't know the breed. Even after I looked it up, I couldn't find a match, so I finally called a friend of mine who works with reptiles at the Bronx Zoo," said Petco employee Laurent Alleyne.

The 10-foot, orange, black and yellowish serpent was a tiger reticulated python. It was a baby in comparison to the adult version of the constrictor species, which not only grow into the world's largest snakes, but have been known to kill people.

Two years ago, a reticulated python that extended more than 49 feet and weighed 985 pounds was captured in the wilds of Sumatra and became the largest snake in captivity.

But in Old Bridge, no one is yet afraid of "Fluffy," the nickname given to the Petco snake by employees at the township animal shelter. The snake hasn't eaten anything bigger than a rat and has remained unusually calm, considering its rough treatment.




"The guy who dropped it off at Petco had found it in a sack on the side of Route 9 and took it to the Petco thinking they could help," said Sonja Svenningsen, the animal control officer in Old Bridge.

"It looks like it was just dumped off the side of the road. Petco contacted my office, and I think we have found a home for it. He seems to be happy and in good shape," she added.

Authorities doubt the snake could have been on the roadside for very long. It is a tropical creature, but was not suffering from exposure to the cold.

"This guy is actually girl. Right now, I'm trying to get her to eat again. She had stopped," said Bill Boesenberg, a state-licensed reptile rehabilitator who gave Fluffy a new home yesterday.

The snake will join a menagerie of creatures in Boesenberg's Wanaque operation, a rescue and education program called Snakes and Scales and Turtle Tales.

He and the Old Bridge officials suspect the python was a discarded pet, something that unnerved Boesenberg not simply because of the shoddy treatment of the snake, but because it was privately owned in the first place.

"Retics get very big, usually in excess of 25 feet and 300 pounds. If they are bought by a person who doesn't know what they are doing, they are going to find it to be a big mistake," he said.

"That happens in many cases. Unfortunately, people panic, and while it's easy to find a place that will take in a snake like this, people just drop them off," said Boesenberg.

Unfortunately, exotic snakes are easy to purchase, legally and illegally, he said. Despite licensing requirements in New Jersey, other states often do not restrict trade in exotic creatures and people often purchase them at animal shows.

"I'm working on something now with the (state) Division of Fish and Wildlife to hopefully stop people from buying all pythons -- to classify them as dangerous animals," said Boesenberg.

Reticulated pythons are a rare find among pet owners, partly because they are capable of killing people.

But Boesenberg contends that the only documented cases of the snakes devouring humans involved children eaten by pets that broke out of cages. The reticulated snakes, even at their largest, prefer to eat pigs and goats.

Yet, even Fluffy would become too much for just anyone to keep as a pet.

"She would get heavy before she'd get very long, but the potential for her to reach 20 feet and 200 pounds is certainly there," said Boesenberg. "And the word we use when describing them is irascible. Friendly is not a word you can ever use with one of these snakes."

The snake's teeth are curved back toward its inner mouth and each of her 140 teeth is about the thickness of a pin. They are not venomous, but they hurt.

"When they bite, you can't pull away. So it's quite painful," said Boesenberg.

Fluffy is not the first unusual creature to be found in Old Bridge.

A few years ago, an albino Burmese python -- one that stretched 22 feet long -- was found slithering around a local park. Next to Fluffy, perhaps the oddest creature authorities there had to rescue was a savannah monitor -- a large African lizard that grows to 4 feet long in captivity and also devours small animals.

"Actually, we got called out to the neighborhood where it was left in a back yard because it was nipping at the local children's feet," Svenningsen said. "It appeared the owner had moved away, and we couldn't find where he went. The monitor was just left in the yard to fend of itself."

At 3 feet long when it was captured, it grew beyond 4 feet by the time a new home was found for the beast, said Svenningsen.

"We certainly get our share of abandoned exotic creatures. I consider it a left-handed compliment," said Barbara Lee, a 23-year veteran at the township shelter.

"People know we take good care of the creatures and work hard to find them homes. Of course, we don't want people dumping them off. It's a problem," she said.