Last night I had an absolutely horrifying meet-up with a potential animal surrender... This guy had been emailing me for about the last two weeks, saying how he had this boa that he wanted to get rid of, and he was too afraid of her 'hissing' to clean her tank... and he couldn't even remember the last time she'd eaten!

So we drove down to Sandy with our pickup kit, since he'd told me that she just needed to go, and he felt like a bad person for the state she was in. So upon entering the room, you could tell something was wrong... she was in a big glass aquarium with big planks on top of it, and NO ventilation. The glass was so filthy that you couldn't even see through it, except for where her body had smeared away the muck. When he pulled off the boards covering the tank, the fetid smell of ammonia and old feces was enough to make me gag... the water (which was in a big stainless steel bucket) was GELATINOUS with waste, and smelled worse than anything I've ever smelled in my life. There was no substrate, and the bottom of the tank was covered INCHES DEEP in sludgy urates and waste.

The snake itself was gurgling and gasping for breath, probably with a combination of a severe respiratory infection and lung damage from having to breathe that ammonia-saturated air for god knows how long. It was covered in stuck shed, but there were pockets of lifted skin that were full of the putrid muck that coated the inside of the cage. I spent a good 20 minutes trying to talk to this man about the proper care requirements for big boas, and the entire time I was holding her head and pulling off patches of filthy, soggy shed skin. She couldn't even breathe properly, and was extremely sluggish and obviously suffering.

The man was unwilling to make a decision on whether or not he wanted to surrender the snake to me, so I told him that he needed to take the night and wash her down, scrub out the tank and offer her a rabbit and a lot of fresh water... I've spoken with Sandy City Animal Control and Salt Lake County Animal Control now regarding the snake and its living conditions. The woman I spoke to from SLCAC said that they will be sending someone out to investigate the situation, and I may be called back regarding the issue if they need more information.

I still feel sick from the fumes that I was breathing, and the sight and smell of that tank will haunt me for quite some time... it is APPALLING to think that some people keep these big constrictors just for the rare 'photo op' and don't understand that they are LIVING, BREATHING creatures. The snake had probably gone 8-9 months without a meal, hadn't had any substrate to rest on or fresh water to drink and bathe in for months... sickening. I know it's naive of me to think that he'll learn something from this situation, but it GALLS me to think that people get away with stuff like this just because snakes aren't cute and cuddly like a puppy or a kitten.
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65 animals... and the number keeps growing!

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