DES MOINES REGISTER (Iowa) 27 October 05 Pet python found in field months after escape - An 11-foot pet python, gone since July, is found about a mile from its owner's home. (Jared Strong)
Photo at URL below: Hold tight: Fred Schuknecht, left foreground, who found Atilla while farming, measures the python with help from Terry Boltjes, right foreground, O'Brien County's conservation director ; Clint Oldfield, left background, an O'Brien County conservation assistant; and a passer-by in Paullina.
Fred Schuknecht of O'Brien County is in the running for being able to claim this year's strangest Iowa harvest experience.
While combining corn near Germantown, Schuknecht encountered what he described as the "wildest'' creature he's ever come across on farmland — an 11-foot Burmese python.
"At first, I thought it was a tire," said Schuknecht, 49, who's been farming for almost 25 years. "I poked it a couple of times and it started to move very lethargically."
Kurt Musland, 44, who lives about a mile from Schuknecht, owns the 45-pound python, a pet named Atilla.
When Atilla slithered away in July, Musland said he didn't alert anyone because he didn't want to cause panic.
"Can you imagine what kind of (uproar) that would have started?" Musland said. "The first one who came across him would shoot him."
Musland said he left the snake unattended in his yard for about 45 minutes the day it went missing. He and a few friends searched for it, and he said the reptile's disappearance had "been on my mind ever since."
"It's basically a part of the family," he said. "He sleeps in bed with me."
Schuknecht and his father, Gene, put the python in a cardboard box and hauled it to nearby Paullina after they discovered it last week, Schuknecht said.
Authorities transported the python to the Iowa Herpetological Society in Ames, where it was examined and treated for parasites.
Herpetological Society President Ed Twedt said this was the first time he'd heard of a farmer encountering a python while harvesting. He also said he was surprised the snake was found alive.
"It's a miracle the animal lived," Twedt said. "Snakes will typically get a bad respiratory problem if it's cold enough to have frost on the ground."
Twedt said the python posed little danger to residents.
"You'd be pretty disappointed if it bit you," Twedt said. "It's not what people expect. I'd be more concerned about a cat scratching me."
Musland, who has owned the snake for five years, also lost Atilla last year while it was at a friend's house in Ida Grove. The python was found two weeks later still inside the house, curled up behind a deep freeze, he said.
Twedt said that Burmese pythons grow up to 20 feet long, but that he doubted Atilla would reach that length in captivity. He said the snake would be transported back to Musland's home today.
Schuknecht's mother, Betty, said local residents had early doubts about her son's discovery when they first heard about it.
Betty Schuknecht, of Paullina, said neighbors "asked me, 'Is this really true, or have they been in the bar too long?' "
Pet python found in field months after escape

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