TORONTO SUN (Ontario) 06 July 05 Surprise Visitor Slithers Up (Kevin Connor)
A threatened species of snake somehow managed to slither hundreds of kilometres from its native Georgian Bay home to Fort Erie, which has the experts stumped.
An eastern fox snake was found yesterday near the Peace Bridge.
"I'm in my 60s and I have been chasing snakes all my life. I've never seen anything like this in the Niagara Peninsula," said Joe Kenney, who is the snake expert for the Fort Erie SPCA.
The snake was spotted near the Canada Customs truck check stop.
"Raccoons and possums hitch rides on trucks, so maybe this snake did," Kenney said. "Maybe it was someone's pet and it got away."
Since the snake is only one metre long, it is still young; adults grow to be 2 metres long, Kenney said,
The non-poisonous snake kills its rodent prey like a boa constrictor.
It was a strange find since the SPCA is used to dealing with furry critters, manager Ray Pastorius said.
"We'll have to find a way to take it back up north where it belongs," Pastorius said.