I looked up ball python abandonment on the internet and came across an interesting story:
Naperville animal care workers provided a safe haven this week for an exotic refugee and its dinner: a black and brown 2-foot-long African ball python and a little white mouse.
"Always something new around here," Anna Payton noted with a chuckle. Payton is executive director of the Naperville Area Humane Society, at 1620 W. Diehl Road on Naperville's far northwest side, which is where the tale of the snake begins.
Payton said a worker was on duty the evening of Oct. 19 when "a gentleman brought a cardboard box" containing the python to the building's service door.
The worker then had "a very rushed conversation" with the man, Payton said. "He indicated that he wasn't able to care for the animal and then basically walked out."
Payton said the humane society typically deals with dogs, cats, and the occasional fish or bird, "so it is rare that we get exotic animals brought here." She added it was the first time a snake had been left at the facility during her 18-month tenure with the organization.
Humane society officials contacted Naperville police, and the python wound up in the care of the department's animal control unit.
Animal Control Officer Julie Kincade said ball pythons are legal to own and can be bought at pet shops or from animal dealers. They can reach 5 or 6 feet in length as adults.
"It's a really common pet snake, the one people would get for their first time as a snake owner," Kincade said. The ball python is neither venomous nor aggressive, having a "pretty easy and gentle" temperament, she said.
The python got a new, temporary home Monday afternoon with representatives of the Chicago Herpetological Society. John Archer, the society's president, said ball pythons are "very, very common, and widely bred."
"They're very docile, and they make very good pets," Archer said Tuesday. He said he expected the Naperville python will soon be "placed in somebody's home that knows how to take care of it."
Perhaps happiest of all at the way things turned out is that white mouse that also was surrendered at the humane society along with the python.
Kincade said the snake, at the time, was shedding its skin, and therefore not eating. That turned out to be a literal lifesaver for the white "feeder mouse" the python's owner had brought to the shelter in a separate box.
"We kept the mouse, and we named him Stouffer," Kincade said. Stouffer now makes his home in a cage on Kincade's desk.
"He doesn't know how lucky he is," Kincade said.
Source: Oh, for goodness snakes — python abandoned in Naperville