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WGGB (Springfield, Massachusetts) 12 August 10 Anaconda found loose in Springfield (Jim Cline)
Springfield, Mass: It was an unusual call that came into the Springfield police department Thursday morning.
A woman said there was a snake loose in her apartment on East Park. Not just any snake, mind you, but an anaconda, the largest breed of snake in the world. Anaconda's are found in the Amazon river basin. But in Springfield?
Fortunately this snake was not the largest. It was about 6 feet long. The woman who made the call says she was watching it for someone else in the building. "I was snake-sitting for a day which turned into more than a day," she said. "Just trying to be a nice neighbor."
The snake crawled out of the top of the aquarium, through a hole that was there to let air in. It wasn't a big deal. The Plexiglas on top wasn't strong enough to stop it. And the woman has had snakes before so she says she was going to put it back in the aquarium but, "I touched it to see if I could just put him back in there and no, he hissed. So I said, Oh no, this is not going well."
That's when she called the police.
Tom Supinski, a licensed exterminator, was called in to remove the snake which was now hiding behind the door. He says it did not appear the snake had been fed in awhile, so it was probably hungry. He also says anacondas belong in their natural setting.
Anaconda found loose in Springfield

{Detailed News Video at URL below}

WGGB (Springfield, Massachusetts) 20 August 10 The Great Snake Debate (Jim Cline)
Springfield, Mass.: On August 12th, the Springfield police received a call that an anaconda was loose in an apartment building.
Hearing the dispatch, we ran to cover this and when we arrived at East Park, Tom Supinski, a local pest elimination expert, had removed this snake from the premises. He said it was an anaconda, a snake that could grow to 24 feet.
Our story started to make the rounds on the Internet and we have received numerous e-mails telling us that the snake is not an anaconda. It's a bull snake or a gopher snake, of the genus pituophis. It is indigenous to his country and not the Amazon basin. They also do make suitable pets, if you know what you're doing.
On Friday, we visited the Southwick's Zoo in Mendon, Mass., which has a young green anaconda. It does not resemble a bull snake, other than the fact that they are both snakes. According to Tim Cornwall, an education coordinator at the zoo, anacondas are not good pets because they get so large. They are not usually the most docile snake either. They can be aggressive.
It's a snake that can grow to 500 pounds and that can be a dangerous animal. "I would never recommend an individual owning a snake like this," Cornwall says, "They're just way too dangerous. They are too unpredictable."
The Great Snake Debate