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WGGB (Springfield, Massachusetts) 20 August 10 The Great Snake Debate (Jim Cline)

Springfield, Mass.: On August 12th, the Springfield police received a call that an anaconda was loose in an apartment building.

Hearing the dispatch, we ran to cover this and when we arrived at East Park, Tom Supinski, a local pest elimination expert, had removed this snake from the premises. He said it was an anaconda, a snake that could grow to 24 feet.

Our story started to make the rounds on the Internet and we have received numerous e-mails telling us that the snake is not an anaconda. It's a bull snake or a gopher snake, of the genus pituophis. It is indigenous to his country and not the Amazon basin. They also do make suitable pets, if you know what you're doing.

On Friday, we visited the Southwick's Zoo in Mendon, Mass., which has a young green anaconda. It does not resemble a bull snake, other than the fact that they are both snakes. According to Tim Cornwall, an education coordinator at the zoo, anacondas are not good pets because they get so large. They are not usually the most docile snake either. They can be aggressive.

It's a snake that can grow to 500 pounds and that can be a dangerous animal. "I would never recommend an individual owning a snake like this," Cornwall says, "They're just way too dangerous. They are too unpredictable."
The Great Snake Debate

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