TRACY PRESS (California) 07 April 08 Snakes alive! A 4-foot-long snake that looked like a rattler but was really a gopher snake, wanted to help deliver the mail in Tracy today. (Danielle MacMurchy)
Photos at URL below: This is the snake that was found in Moses Mendoza's truck at the post office today. (Danielle MacMurchy)
Police zapped a 4-foot-long gopher snake with Taser gun to remove it today from the engine of a truck parked at Tracy Post Office.
The truck’s owner, postal worker Moses Mendoza, opened the hood at about 10 a.m. today to find what he thought was a rattlesnake. While Mendoza started his delivery route, employees at Tracy Post Office reported the snake to Tracy Police Department.
A crowd of seven looked on while animal control officer Beth Palacios and Jerry Doherty, a passerby from La Grange, tried to muscle the snake out of the engine. The snake tightly wrapped itself around the transmission and snapped several times at Palacios.
The crew, joined by police Sgt. Dave Sasser, resorted to a Taser to loosen the snake’s grip.
Gopher snakes can grow to be 5-foot-long and are often mistaken for rattlesnakes, Palacios said. Their bite isn’t poisonous, but it can break the skin, she added.
“Gopher snakes are indigenous to this area,” Palacios said. “We didn’t want to hurt it.”
She said animal control will drive the snake to a field out of town and release it.
Snakes alive!