America is home to some of the most extraordinary wildlife on the planet. Bears in Yellowstone. Alligators in the Florida Everglades. Bald eagles soaring over the Smoky Mountains. Ah, we can hear the sound of freedom! It is a country where encountering a wild animal in its natural habitat is part of the experience, majestic, humbling, and deeply American.
And then there is New Jersey, where a woman watering her flowers on a perfectly ordinary afternoon looked down and found an 8-foot Burmese python sliding through her backyard. This is not the kind of wildlife encounter anyone signs up for, and seeing what it had for dinner even less so.
Wildlife encounters usually stop when you leave the forest, you don't expect it to follow you to your backyard
A New Jersey couple got the fright of their life when they found an 8-foot serpent slithering under their shed
Leslie Daley was doing something as mundane and peaceful as watering her flowers at the family home in Freehold, New Jersey, when she spotted something that was neither mundane nor peaceful moving through the backyard. An 8-foot Burmese python. Her husband Ed called the Monmouth County SPCA, who dispatched animal control to the scene.
"When we all saw it, our jaws kind of dropped a little," officer Scott Crawford said, "because that is a Burmese python, which definitely does not belong out in the wild in New Jersey." The snake had found a hole in the corner of the shed and made itself comfortable underneath, which sounds like the best place in Jersey, tbh.
The local SPCA was dispatched to come and get it, but its belly was full from a huge dinner, making extraction a little difficult
Animal control arrived expecting a relatively straightforward extraction. Pull the snake back through the hole it used to get in, and everybody goes home. That plan didn't last long because the python had recently eaten a very substantial meal, leaving it with a belly so large it could not fit back through the opening without risking serious injury.
So they called in a contractor, who tore up the shed floorboards to give rescuers access from above. And then, even with the floor gone, the snake's full stomach was still blocking the way. "We had to dig around him a little bit to free him up," Crawford said. "Still couldn't tell exactly where his head was." Not the kind of thing you want to be saying around an apex predator.
They X-rayed the snake to make sure it hadn't eaten someone's pet
Once the python was safely out, the Monmouth County SPCA's medical staff took X-rays to find out what exactly was inside the snake's stomach and whether its recent meal had caused any complications. The images revealed the culprit: an opossum. Presumably, there was a sigh of relief knowing it was an opossum and not an opoodle.
Crawford noted that for a snake of that size, a family pet would have been a very real possibility. But how does an 8-foot Burmese python end up under a shed in New Jersey in the first place? Officials suspect it was likely a pet that was illegally released when its owner could no longer handle it because Burmese pythons are legal to own in New Jersey with a permit.
They found that it was an opossum that sustained the animal, and they could breathe a sigh of relief
The Monmouth County SPCA confirmed that the danger noodle has been placed with a qualified reptile expert who holds the proper permits and appropriate housing. "A snake expert with the proper reptile permits and housing will keep this guy safe," they wrote, "and if no permitted owner comes forward, the snake will have a happy home for life."
They also took a moment to remind people that exotic pets should never be released into the wild. They are not native to where you want to release them (what is even native to Jersey?) and they can cause irreparable harm to the ecosystem.
Florida is experiencing a devastating python invasion but has found a uniquely Florida way of dealing with it
Florida's Everglades is currently experiencing one of the most significant invasive species crises in American history. Burmese pythons, introduced almost entirely through the exotic pet trade, have established a breeding population in the Everglades that is now estimated to number in the hundreds of thousands.
They have been devastating native wildlife with a thoroughness that has shocked ecologists. Populations of rabbits, raccoons, opossums and birds have collapsed by as much as 90% in some areas of the Everglades since the pythons arrived because they have no natural predators in Florida.
The Florida Python Challenge, an annual event that invites registered participants to remove as many Burmese pythons from the wild as possible over a set period, with cash prizes for the longest snake and the highest number removed. It is exactly as chaotic and uniquely American as it sounds.
Thousands of people have participated over the years, ranging from seasoned wildlife professionals to enthusiastic amateurs who fancy their chances in the Everglades. The competitions have removed significant numbers of pythons from the wild, but given the scale of the population, experts acknowledge it is unlikely to solve the problem.
How would you react if you found one of these unwanted visitors in your yard? Tell us in the comments!
Watch the full rescue operation here:
Despite most people's fear of snakes, folks in the comments were still happy the snake was safe; the same couldn't be said for the opossum
