NEWS & OBSERVER (Raleigh, N Carolina) 23 June 10 Ex-inhabitant of snakeskin is just a lovable 7-foot pet (Mark Schultz)

Chapel Hill: "Hey girl," Justice Warren coos as he lifts the 7-foot female Colombian red-tailed boa constrictor out of its living room tank.

He drapes the snake across his shoulders. She stretches her head down his right arm. Her tiny, forked tongue flicks the air.

Roxanne shed her skin last week, as snakes do, and Warren tossed it outside. A postal worker found the skin in the grass on Davie Circle, off East Franklin Street, and the news spread that a large, predatory snake might be loose.

Warren could have kept quiet. But after his grandmother read a newspaper story about the snakeskin, he wanted to reassure people that the snake adopted from Carolina Pet Rescue last fall is safe and so are his neighbors.

It's Roxanne who could now be in danger of losing her home.

A Chapel Hill ordinance, and a similar Orange County ordinance, prohibits the keeping of "poisonous, crushing or giant" reptiles.

Orange County Animal Services director Bob Marotto says crushing refers to squeezing snakes like boas "that are large enough to harm people."

And that's where the wiggle room comes in.

As far as Marotto knows, the county has not seized a crushing snake, although it has ordered poisonous species removed. And the ordinance does not define "giant."

"It probably is an issue that requires a clarification to the ordinances," he said. "I think we would probably have to investigate this if we knew there was a snake in the jurisdiction. I can't tell you what we would do."

The concern is not just what such snakes might do to people. In Florida, the release of exotic species is a growing problem.

People release pets outdoors when they get too big or they tire of them, said veterinarian Kay Bishop, founder of Carolina Pet Rescue.

Sometimes the animals have escaped, but "people have the mistaken notion that they can turn these animals out in the wild," Bishop said. "This is not their natural habitat. They can't survive."

Bishop won't house all animals. She rejected an African rock python, a species that can grow to 20 feet and swallow a gazelle.

But boas and smaller ball pythons make good pets, she said.

"They're quiet," she said. "They tend to only need to eat every 10 to 14 days. A lot of children and adults find them fascinating."

Instead of bans, laws should focus on cage requirements and species, Bishop said. "There is a big difference between a boa and an African rock python," she said.

Warren, 21, a journalism student at UNC-Chapel Hill, said he knows he might have to move Roxannne but wants to tell her story to help dispel people's fears.

"She is very sweet and has never bitten anyone," he said in an e-mail message. "I am terribly sorry for the scare that this snake skin may have caused to the postal workers and residents of Chapel Hill."

At home Tuesday, Warren and roommate Neal Stultz said they feed the 12-pound snake two rats every two weeks. It takes about eight minutes from lunge to last gulp.

"Sometimes she gets nervous, and that's when she stops moving," Warren said as Roxanne slithered up a window pane. "I'll come up and stroke her on the back and she'll forget she was nervous."

"Sometimes I like to give her little snake kisses," he added. "Her tongue goes like this," he said, flicking his finger in front of his mouth.
Ex-inhabitant of snakeskin is just a lovable 7-foot pet

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