Daily Reptile News

15,000 snakes spotted slithering along a road near a Chinese village

About 15,000 snakes were spotted slithering along a road near a village in northern Beijing this week in what local authorities said may have been part of a Buddhist ceremony, China’s Global Times reports.

The Huairou district Bureau of Landscape and Forestry was quick to assure locals that the rambling reptiles had nothing to do with the weather, while the seismological office stressed that it did not signal an impending earthquake.

“Don’t believe the rumors and stop spreading them,” the forestry bureau said.

The Times said the 15,000 snakes crossed the road at the village of Duanshuling Monday morning.

Yang Fuwu, from the Beijing Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation center, said traffic was even stopped for a while to minimize the number of snakes crushed by passing vehicles.

About 10 foam boxes and bamboo sticks were also found nearby, indicating that the snakes had been released, the newspaper says.

“It’s rare to see such a mass release. It might be a Buddhist ceremony,” Yang said. “Such campaigns should be encouraged, but it’s irrational to release so many at the same place at one time.”

Miami man accused of illegally selling pythons

MIAMI

A Miami man was charged with three misdemeanors after he was accused of selling two reticulated pythons without having a license, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said Wednesday.

Miguel C. Ruitort, 20, is charged with selling wildlife without a license, possessing reptiles of concern without a license, and selling reptiles of concern to an unlicensed person, authorities said.

Ruitort is accused of selling the snakes for $20 each on May 21 to an undercover wildlife agent who contacted him through a Craigslist ad.

Certain reptiles, like reticulated pythons, must be licensed by the wildlife commission before they can be kept as pets.

Giant Lizard Found In Arizona Desert

ELOY, Ariz. — An Asian water monitor more than 5 feet long was captured in Eloy Tuesday. Russ Johnson, of the Phoenix Herpetological Society, and other PHS volunteers found signs of the lizard living near a canal after hearing several reports from irrigation workers and nearby residents. “As we looked, we saw areas with fresh digs and tail drag,” said Dan Marchand, also of PHS. Marchand said they started to poke around in the area where they saw the tracks and within a few minutes spotted the tail of the lizard deep in a burrow.”It took about an hour to dig him out,” said Johnson.Marchand identified the animal as an Asian water monitor, a species that is non-native to Arizona. He said it was most likely a pet that got loose or was dumped. He estimated it had been living in the desert several months, based on the condition of the lizard.”He’s a little thin. His tail area should be fatter,” said Marchand. “These animals have instinct like no other,” said Marchand, noting that the lizard found a home near water, and thus rodents. “They find what they need to survive.”Kirk Weddle, a farmer in Eloy, heard about the lizard through an irrigation district worker. “He was telling the guys at the shop he found an alligator or dragon or something in the water and everyone said, ‘What’s wrong with you, David?’ and everyone laughed,” said Weddle.”I was afraid someone would try to make a pair of boots out of him,” said Weddle. “That would be the easiest thing to do — turn him into a pair of boots or a hat band. He probably deserved better than that.”The monitor is now recovering at the PHS sanctuary. PHS volunteers said they named the lizard “Vaca,” which is the nickname of the irrigation district employee who first spotted the creature.

Man fined for letting snake loose at Holiday Inn

MASON CITY, Iowa

A city magistrate in Mason City has fined a local man $65 for allowing his pet snake to be on the loose at the Mason City Holiday Inn earlier this month.

Police say 25-year-old Michael Salo permitted his 5-year-old bull python to be at large in a hallway without control or supervision on May 1. He was charged under the city animal control ordinance.

Hotel manager Brandy Smith Branstad says employees noticed the snake early in the morning and notified authorities. The incident caused no disruption for patrons, she said.

Branstad says Salo was a guest at the hotel, but his snake was not.

She says Salo was apologetic about the incident.

Court fines snake thief

A Cairns man has been fined $4,500 for taking snakes from national parks in far north Queensland and keeping them at his home.

Rhys Bernard Livens was fined in the Cairns Magistrates Court for taking 12 snakes, including carpet pythons, water pythons and a spotted python, from national parks in Cairns and Cooktown.

Officers also found two chameleon geckos and an amethystine python at his home during the raids in 2008 and 2009.

He pleaded guilty to nine charges under the Nature Conservation Act and no conviction was recorded.

Owner tangles with 3m snake to save dog

A QUEENSLAND woman fought a game of life-or-death tug-of-war with a 3m-long python to save her dog.

Brenda van Bovene, who lives in north Queensland, leaped to the defence of Tammy, her 11-year-old Australian Silky Terrier, after she heard the animal’s desperate cries for help on Monday afternoon.

”I was in the study and Tammy was making this terrible noise,” she said. What she found was the carpet python coiled around the dog. ”I’m only 5ft 1inch (155cm), and it looked twice as big as me – it was a huge snake,” she said.

Despite being outsized, Ms Bovene grabbed the snake’s tail to try and break the predator’s hold. ”It was all a bit of a blur, I just did the first thing that came to mind,” she said. ”I managed to grab the tail and start to pull in the opposite direction. ”The snake coiled tighter but eventually let go to (flee) beneath the barbecue.”

As the snake sheltered on the patio, Ms Bovene took her beloved Tammy inside the house.

Meanwhile, her cries for help as she struggled with the serpent alerted neighbour Cameron Rowlands. He was later joined by his father, Steve, and the pair caught the python. They placed it in a pillowcase and released it into the bushland.

”We didn’t injure it at all, but thought it would be best to relocate it to a non-residential area,” she said.

Tammy has been given a relatively clean bill of health by a vet but Ms Bovene yesterday placed her under ”house arrest”.

She warned an attack would occur again unless an effort was made to maintain grassed areas in the suburb.

”This was the 13th snake we’ve had in the past six to eight weeks,” she said. ”All the (environment) conditions are the same as they were last year when we saw none, except for the state of the grass. ”A snake (as big as that which attacked Tammy) could easily do the same to an infant.”

In Raleigh, men arrested for decapitating turtles

RALEIGH — After Jennifer Jeffries caught a foot-long turtle in her front yard Sunday afternoon, she and her three young children set out to drop it off in a South Raleigh fishing hole. Jeffries, 24, figured on a serene trip, where the children also could feed the ducks.

But when the family arrived at the fishing hole, they saw a scene out of a horror movie. A shotgun was propped against a car and a machete lay in the grass. When Jeffries got ready to release the turtle, a man sitting in a metal folding chair warned her that if she dropped the reptile in the water, he would kill it, she told police.

Then, the man lifted the machete and slashed the head off another turtle caught on his fishing line, according to police reports.

“We’ve been killing a lot of them,” Jeffries recalled the man saying. “We’ve been shooting them because they keep biting my fishing line.”

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