Stop Keeping Snakes As Pets

What a terrifying sight for Benton County Sheriff Donald Munson to walk in on — an 8-foot-long python wrapped around a 36-year-old woman’s neck. The tragic incident in Indiana last week highlights just one of many reasons that snakes do not make good pets.

Most people are afraid of snakes. In fact, researchers have found it to be one of the most common phobias, with up to one-third of human beings classed as ophidiophobic. But others, presumably including the victim Laura Hurst, love the animals and keep dozens in small glass tanks throughout their houses with only a small plastic rock and heat lamp to mimic — poorly — the conditions snakes would experience in the wild.

To read more on this story, click here: Stop Keeping Snakes As Pets

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A Startling Discovery Was Made Inside a Home in Jupiter, Florida: 100 Dead Pythons

A woman who neighbors say lived alone and kept mostly to herself shared her home with many animals, and a lot of them were found dead.

Katie McGinness, a mother of two, has walked her dog past the home at 132 Timberline Drive many times.

She’s shocked to learn the lady living there had approximately 100 dead snakes in a bedroom.

“I was just amazed,” said McGinness.

“It was just chaotic. I mean we had cops, we had the fire department,” said Rob Long, who lives next door to 132 Timberline Drive.

On February 16, police were called out to do a welfare check and found deplorable conditions. They says the entire floor of the house was covered with animal feces, and in a bedroom there were numerous plastic bins containing dead pythons.

“I mean why would anyone have 100 snakes?” asked Long.

The dead snakes were ball pythons, which are not poisonous and grow to 3-4 feet long.

“I was stunned, saddened because I watched them take some of the animals out,” McGinness said.

“I feel sorry for her, ‘cause I guess, I don’t know if she doesn’t have anyone to ask for help or she just got over her head with what she was doing,” Long said.

A local wildlife expert says for one person, feeding and taking care of 100 snakes at home would be practically a full time job.

“It’s just a sad situation. I’m going to assume that she was an animal lover, as we all are around here. However it just kind of got away from her,” said Amy Kight, animal care director at Busch Wildlife Sanctuary in Jupiter.

Neighbors say they shudder to think what might’ve happened if the snakes got loose in the neighborhood.

“That’s crazy. But it’s scary too, because if one of them escapes it’s scary,” said Sophia Simpson, 10, a neighbor.

Besides 100 dead snakes, authorities also removed some live animals, including two dogs, a couple of tortoises and parakeets and two snakes and an African gray parrot.

A Palm Beach County Animal Care and Control official said Thursday night as far as he knows, all of the animals have been adopted out.

The woman who had the dead snakes in her home, Jennifer Morrison, 59, was cited for confining animals without sufficient food and water.





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Village Enthralled by 7-Year-Old Who Naps, Cuddles with 16-Foot Python

Setbo Village, Cambodia - Being responsible parents, rice farmer Khuorn Sam Ol and his wife might not be expected to be keen on having their child play with a 16-foot-long, 220-pound snake.

Yet they are unflustered that their 7-year-old son, Uorn Sambath, regularly sleeps in the massive coil of the female python, rides the reptile, kisses it and even pats it down with baby powder.

"There is a special bond between them," Khuorn Sam Ol said. "My son played with the snake when he was still learning to crawl. They used to sleep together in a cradle."

The boy and his snake have become a tourist attraction in Setbo village, about 12 miles south of the capital Phnom Penh, as well as a source of wonder to the locals.

"People sometimes call the boy and the snake husband and wife," said Cheng Raem, a 48-year-old neighbor. "Maybe they were a couple from a previous life."

Boy and snake grew up together, ever since the python slithered into the family home when Uorn Sambath was 3 months old. His 39-year-old mother, Kim Kannara, discovered the reptile, then about the size of a thumb, coiled beneath a woven mat on their bed.

Khuorn Sam Ol took the snake away, releasing it into some bushes by a river, but one morning two weeks later, he found it back inside the house. He decided to keep it and named it Chamroeun — meaning "progress," in English.

He came to believe the snake possesses a magical spirit that understands what he says and protects the family from illness. The snake has its own 7-by-10-foot room with a spirit house at which Khuorn Sam Ol prays for the python to keep his family happy and healthy. The snake is so familiar with his son — one of four children — that it would never hurt him, he said.

According to Nikolai Doroshenko, a Russian snake expert living in Cambodia, it's true that pythons rarely attack humans unless provoked.

But there is still an element of danger in allowing any young child to play with a large python with a grip powerful enough to break bones, said Doroshenko, who runs the Snake House guesthouse in the southwestern city of Sihanoukville, with its own collection of snakes and other reptiles.

Chamroeun — whom it takes three adults to carry — eats about 22 pounds of chicken meat every week, posing a heavy financial burden on the family, said Khuorn Sam Ol.

His meals used to be a spiritual burden as well, when they fed him live rats and chickens. Uneasy that they were breaking the Buddhist injunction against killing living things, Khuorn Sam Ol said the snake eventually answered his prayers for it to stop eating live animals.

Wildlife and police officials used to come by to try to take the snake away and put it in a zoo. But they relented after seeing Uorn Sambath lovingly cuddling the reptile. They left with some pictures they took of the boy and the snake together, Khuorn Sam Ol said.

"I will not let anyone take her away from me, either. I love her very much," declared his son, Uorn Sambath, kissing his pet on the head.

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First Responders Called to a Sushi Restaurant After a Man Allegedly Threw a Giant Python on the Floor and Walked Out

Just when you think you’ve seen it all, L.A. first responders say they were called to a sushi restaurant on Sunday after a man allegedly threw a giant python on the floor and walked out.

“Probably one of the weirdest calls that I’ve ever heard us respond to,” LAPD Lt. John Gavin told Fox 11.

Police say the man had already showed up at the restaurant with a smaller snake earlier that night. When he started arguing with another diner, he was asked to leave.

So the man did – but then he came back, this time with a 13-foot python.

“Customers are yelling, ‘Get this thing out! Are you crazy,’” Jessie Davaadorj, a server, told KCAL 9.

Lt. Gavin said the suspect, who was later arrested, didn’t deny his involvement.

He said that “he was mad, and that he felt that was the only way he could get even,” said the lieutenant.

Thankfully, the fire department and animal control were able to safely corner the snake into a box.

Police say the man, who is homeless, has been charged with criminal threats from “using the snake as a weapon and threatening the patrons.”

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If You Thought ‘Snakes on a Plane’ Was Bad: Thief Caught on Surveillance Video in Pet Store Putting Python Snake in His Pants

Portland, Oregon - Police in Portland are investigating an unusual theft after surveillance video shows a man at a pet shop stick a 2-foot python down his pants.

In the video, a man can be seen walking into 'A to Z' Pets on Friday and over to the python's tank.

  The man reaches into the tank and takes out the snake then quickly drops it into his pants.

The man then waddles out of the store.

"He's lucky it wasn't feeding day, feeding days are on Mondays. And they're very hungry," said owner Christin Bjugan. "Anytime anything like this happens, it's very frustrating. We work very hard to make a living and run the business."

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Like a Virgin: Python Births 6 Sans Mate

LOUISVILLE -- Who needs males?

Not the world's largest snakes, and the Louisville Zoo has the reticulated python to prove it.

Zoo officials said Thursday that one of their female reticulated pythons, Thelma, gave birth to six baby pythons without the aid of a male python. She shared exhibit space only with another female python, Louise.

To read more on this story, click here: Like a Virgin: Python Births 6 Sans Mate
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Woman Gets Snake She Didn't Order in Mail

Granite City, Illinois, police say a woman has received a baby python in the mail that someone purchased with her credit card number.

Delores Gavin said a FedEx delivery man left the snake at her front door Tuesday. The $100 spotted python was sent from a reptile dealer in California and is a common pet among reptile lovers.

Gavin says she screamed when she found the snake, which she didn't order.

The reptile dealer has agreed to take the snake back and refund $100 charged to Gavin's credit card.

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Port St. Lucie, Florida - Officers Caught a 12-Foot Python Friday that Neighbors Said Had Been Eating the Area's Cats

Officers caught a 12-foot python Friday that neighbors said had been eating the area's cats.

Sgt. John Holman arrived on the scene at about 7:20 a.m. and found a dead cat in an empty lot, police said. Holman walked through waist-high brush and spotted a Burmese python.

Holman called for backup officers to help him get the snake, which weighed about 120 pounds, out of the brush.

Holman, who recognized that this python was banned in Florida, found someone with a Florida Fish and Wildlife license to house the snake.

Pythons are an invasive species in Florida, where researchers think they are eating their way through populations of native mammals in the Everglades.

Florida now prohibits owning or selling pythons for use as pets, and federal law bans importation and interstate sale of the species.

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Man Buys Stolen 10 Foot Long Python and Immediately Regrets It

Coventry, England - Dwayne Matthews, a 29-year-old man was at a house party when a van pulled up selling snakes. Dwayne bought Bruce, a 10 ft long Python, with the intent to sell him later. Unfortunately for Dwayne, Bruce was stolen property, and pretty mad about it.

Dwayne awoke the next morning to see Bruce the Snake trying to eat his sleeping friend. After saving his friend, Dwayne tried to sell Bruce to a local pet shop and was arrested for possession of stolen goods.

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