WINNPIPEG SUN (Manitoba) 24 January 05 Snake In The Snow- Boa Was Alive On Roof, Says Man Who Found It
Everyone's heard about snakes in the grass, but how about one in the snow?
Or on the roof?
Fort Rouge resident Jason Works encountered just that Friday afternoon, while clearing snow off the roof of his Lorette Avenue home.
There, after turning over a deep drift, Works found himself face-to-scaly-face with a six-foot red-tailed boa constrictor.
"I just about s--- my pants," Works said of his reaction to the roof-bound reptile. "I'm a good Canadian, and we just don't have this kind of (stuff) here. I mean, I've seen garter snakes before, but they were three inches long, not six feet."
Works' first instinct was to knock the snake off his roof into a snow bank below, then call his wife to check out the find.
The snake was coiled up when he first uncovered it, but began uncoiling itself after being knocked down, leading Works to believe it was still alive.
He and his wife quickly called the Winnipeg Humane Society, which sent someone to retrieve the animal. Works said he was later informed the snake had died from exposure, although it's still unclear whether that happened before or after the animal was taken from his yard.
Humane society officials didn't return calls for comment yesterday, and Works himself said he's at a loss to figure out how the snake reached his roof.
"The only thing I can think of is we used to have a lot of squirrels up there," he said. "I don't know if it went up there after a meal or what."
Local snake expert Vern Ruml said he recognized the snake as a boa constrictor right away, but was also unable to explain how it made it on to Works' roof.
"All I can do with the information I have is speculate," said Ruml, of Ruml's Reptiles. "Maybe it got to the roof itself, maybe someone tossed it up there dead or alive."
Whatever the case, Ruml said yesterday he'd be very surprised to learn the snake was still alive when Works found it, despite the "uncoiling" witnessed when it was knocked from the roof to the ground.
"Mobility for a boa constrictor in freezing winter weather is next to nil, if at all," he said. "Death would occur in a matter of minutes and exposure of a dead animal to warm or hot weather would eventually lead to a decay process."
Works' discovery marks the second time in recent months that an exotic snake has made an unexpected -- and unexplained -- appearance in Manitoba.
Late last October, residents of Thompson discovered a 15-foot python at the side of a highway in the southern-most end of town.
Thompson's animal control officers originally believed the was a boa constrictor, a species typically found in Central and South America. It's their theory the animal was probably an exotic pet owned by someone who didn't properly dispose of it once it had died.
Snake In The Snow