A small group of friends were fishing from their kayaks on the Wildcat Creek this Sunday, when Dave Neal noticed a snake wrapped around a tree trunk on shore. At first, Neal thought nothing of it, until he saw it start to slither up a hill. That’s about the time he noticed its size, and when he decided called 911. Police later told him the snake he spotted was an 11-foot long Burmese python.
Pythons such as these are native to parts of Asia, and certainly aren’t often found in Indiana, of all places. Josh Schoon, a conservation officer with the Indiana Department of Natural Resources suspects the snake was a pet that either escaped or was abandoned.
Schoon came to the scene at about 5:30 p.m., and after speaking with his sergeant, made the decision to put the snake down. Schoon says the snake posed a danger to small children, and explained that due to poor cell reception, he wasn’t sure how he’d have been able to bring out a rescue expert. “If it was a lot closer to town, and I had a lot more ways to contact people, it might have been within the question to try to get someone there to pick it up and not put it down, and hopefully get it a good home somewhere,” Schoon said. He shot the python three times in the head before it died.
Mark Denhardt, curator of the Tippecanoe County Exotic Animal Sanctuary agreed that the snake did pose a threat to nearby children, as pythons can be extremely aggressive and dangerous. However, he was disappointed that the snake was killed before he or anyone else was called to rescue it. “Every animal in the book is covered in this area, so there’s no excuse for something like this to happen,” he said.
After Schoon shot the snake, he told Neal he could keep it. Neal did just that–and is currently in the process of curing the python hide. He plans to hang it from his back porch some day, and says “It’ll always been a conversation piece,” adding, “I ain’t never seen anything that big in the wild before … it’s kinda cute, though.”
[Via: jconline]
[Photo Via: jconline]
wtf? “…after speaking with his sergeant, made the decision to put the snake down.” They shot the snake? This is the most absurd thing I have ever heard!
Yes. It is absurd.
That is awful. Poor snake.
What a lack of resoucefulness and a lame excuse. Really a stupid decision. And now a ‘conversation piece’…for idiots.