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WINNIPEG SUN (Manitoba) 04 January 06 Serpentine Sleuth Officer Handles Mystery Snake (Ross Romaniuk)
Photo at URL: Const. Dirk Creighton holds the Honduran milk snake found slithering on the floor at a city storage warehouse on Elgin Avenue. (C. Procaylo)
A routine day at a storage warehouse became a s-s-s-urprise for its employees yesterday and a little scary.
That's when a snake native to Central America was found slithering on the building's concrete floor.
"I wasn't sure what it was when I first saw it," Rick Briskie, a mechanic at Easy Access Self Storage on Elgin Avenue, told the Sun of his unnerving discovery of the exotic serpent -- more than a metre long -- around noon.
"It looked just like an S-shaped thing on the floor. I walked up, and it was a red- and gold-coloured snake."
Staff called 911 and two police cruisers quickly responded, along with Const. Dirk Creighton -- the force's go-to guy when it comes to very slimy suspects.
Creighton wasted little time wrestling the reptile into captivity -- with his gloved hands -- after drawing on experience to identify it as a non-poisonous Honduran milk snake.
"I took a very good look at the snake to assess it before I grabbed it," said Creighton, a 29-year-old serpent hobbyist who was once involved in education programs at Assiniboine Park Zoo. "You never pick up a if you're not sure what it is, especially if it has potentially dangerous colours."
And this one does -- red, gold and black bands which make the breed closely resemble deadly poisonous coral snakes native to the same semi-tropical region.
"There are, of course, venomous snakes in Honduras. And there's a little rhyme to help people know whether they're venomous," Winnipeg-area snake expert Vern Ruml explained, noting the arrangement of the coloured bands are the key.
"If red touches yellow, it can kill a fellow. And if red touches black, venom it will lack -- or you're OK, Jack."
After telling Briskie and staff to stay clear of the snake until officers arrived, Creighton grabbed the snake around its midsection -- the manner, he says, in which it's most comfortable -- and simply carried it to a cruiser for a ride in the front seat to the city's animal services facility on Logan Avenue.
"It was kind of funny, because as we were transporting it people would look -- and then look again. They'd roll down their windows to ask about it," Creighton said.
No one knew where the snake had come from, though Ruml and the storage compound's staff speculated it could have entered in a couch or other furniture stored in one of the building's many lockers.
Creighton and Ruml noted that while the Honduran milk snake are popular pets in these parts, they would not survive long outside during a Winnipeg winter -- even in the current mild conditions.
"Being found and going to a good home is a happy ending for that snake," said Ruml,.
Officials at the city pound didn't return calls for word on the snake's fate or whether it will be put up for adoption.
Serpentine Sleuth Officer Handles Mystery Snake

WINNIPEG SUN (Manitoba) 05 January 06 Snake's Fate Up In The Air Bylaws May Stop Adoption (Ross Romaniuk)
It's slithered into the safety of the city's animal pound, though it's unclear whether an exotic-looking snake can get set for a full adoption.
The municipal animal services agency hasn't determined whether the metre-long serpent -- apparently a Central American milk snake found at an Exchange District warehouse on Tuesday -- is even allowed in Winnipeg under federal and city regulations.
"We strongly suspect it's a common milk snake and therefore non-poisonous, though that needs to be confirmed," Rand Parker of the Logan Avenue pound said yesterday.
A herpetologist is expected to examine the black, red and gold-banded reptile this week.
No customers at Easy Access Self-Storage -- where the snake was found by staff on a concrete floor -- have come forward to claim the serpent. The University of Manitoba appears willing to take it if its original owner isn't found.
"It's a beautiful snake," said Beverly Horn, a U of M zoology instructor, after seeing the reptile -- which a city police officer says appears to come from the Honduran milk species -- in a Winnipeg Sun photograph.
"If no one owns it, certainly the U of M would be interested in having it," she added. "Oh, yeah. Better that than it gets killed."
Snake's Fate Up In The Air Bylaws May Stop Adoption