The Cowlitz County Humane Society has returned the nine exotic snakes it seized from two Longview homes to their owners, Animal Control Supervisor Mike Nicholson said.

The snakes were seized under an ordinance that requires the owners of snakes capable of growing as long as 10 feet or more to register them with the Humane Society. None of the snakes had been registered, Nicholson said.

The snakes included two 6-foot red tail boa constrictors, two 8-foot carpet pythons and three ball pythons.

Nicholson said none of the exotic animal rescue groups and snake experts the Humane Society usually works with had room for the snakes, and so he was left with the prospect of destroying the reptiles.

Instead, Nicholson said, he contacted the men from which the snakes were seized and offered them back on the condition that they register them and keep them in properly secured enclosures.

"We gave them all back," Nicholson said of the snakes. "I didn't want to put them down."

The decision represented a reversal for the Humane Society, which had previously said it would not return the snakes to their owners. Nicholson said just after the snakes were taken that the agency was cracking down on unregistered reptiles, which seemed to have increased in popularity in the community and, in some cases, had escaped or were being kept in poorly secured containers.

"We're not giving them back," Nicholson said in early September.

Still, Nicholson said late last week that the snake seizures, which were widely publicized in the press, seem to have helped spread the word that big snakes must be registered.

Local residents have licensed nearly a dozen of the reptiles since early September, he said.
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