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THE GAZETTE (Cedar Rapids, Iowa) 16 July 08 Big snake prompts call to animal control (Steve Gravelle)
Cedar Rapids: The radio call sent Marcia Ritchart to 3319 River Pointe Circle NE to collect a "four-foot python."
When Ritchart, a Cedar Rapids Animal Control officer, arrived at the town house overlooking a densely wooded stretch of the Cedar River, Rebecca Campbell was on the front step holding what was in fact a bull snake.
"I've seen bull snakes," said Campbell, holding the snake up so its full length was apparent. "I've never seen one as big as me."
Campbell said she found the snake in the backyard of the town house owned by her uncle Al Remington, late Tuesday morning.
"I just went out the back door, and it snapped at my dog," she said.
Woman finds bull snake in yard of Cedar Rapids home from GazetteOnline.com on Vimeo.
Campbell, 35, and her husband and stepdaughter have been staying with her uncle since they were flooded out of their home on Eighth Street NW in the Time Check neighborhood. She said her husband once owned a python, and she's had an iguana as a pet.
"If I was back down in Time Check and saw one of these on my back porch ... " she said.
"We see this kind of snake all the time," Ritchart said. "It's a bull snake, isn't it? I'm not the (Animal Control) snake person. I'm just the only person who will pick them up who's not scared of them."
"He's not happy," Campbell observed as the snake hissed, a common defensive reaction. "He seems to be pretty fearless, but he's calming down."
Campbell placed the snake back in the pillow case she'd kept it in since capturing it. Ritchart decided to take the snake to an expert for positive identification.
"My luck, we let him go, and he's somebody's exotic pet," Ritchart said.
After confirming it was a bull snake, she returned it later Tuesday to Campbell, who agreed to release it in the woods.
"I'll walk him in there myself," she said.
The bull snake, Pituophis catenifer sayi, is one of the more common snakes, found across the western half of the United States. They're often bred as pets. They dine on mice, rats, large bugs, ground-nesting birds, lizards and the young of other snakes, according to Wikipedia.
And he'd probably have plenty of company.
"That's not unusual," Indian Creek Nature Center Director Rich Patterson said of Campbell's find. "You get six-footers around here."
Big snake prompts call to animal control
