The Great Basin Escape
This story has put me through the ringer emotionally with the highs and lows.
First off I would like to thank my beautiful wife Amy for being so patient with whole deal.
Second off this is my prized snake in my collection. She is a Orange Motley Great Basin Gopher a co-dominate gene and she is het for Albino, plus she has the orange genetics. There is only one Orange Albino or what I like to call an Albino Flame, which was bred to prior to the escape. She can produce Albino Motleys and even better Albino Flame Motleys, neither have been done before.
My partner Shaun Vought and best friend and I have been working on this project for quite sometime now. Shaun has the Albino Flame GB at his place. So I took this girl over his place to be bred. After several weeks of breeding I picked up the snake to bring back to my place. I live 2 hours away form Shaun. Our first mistake, we didn’t put her in a bag. We put her in a shoebox tub. An hour I got home I went to put her away. That’s when things went bad. She had popped the lid off and escaped in our car/SUV. Colubrids can hide in place you wouldn’t believe. The chances of me ever finding her where slim to none. I searched for days with no luck. My poor wife had to drive to work with this snake in the car. It could be dangerous, causing to wreck by scaring her. What if the snake died to the dash and caused a big stink? That could ruin the car too. Lucky the weather had been cool. I tried setting up some traps. I used a heat pad with hiding places near it. I checked the every few hours to see if the snake would get attracted to the warmth as temps dropped into the 40s at night. I even got a 2’ by 2’ board with duct tape, sticky side out with a fuzzy mouse stuck to it near the warm spot. These goofy ideas went on for 10 days with no avail.
The car had to go into the shop for an auto repair from a prior accident. The day before going to the shop, the snake had pooped on the passenger side just below the dash. I thought wow the snakes still in the car and is still alive. When my wife took the car in she told the guys at the auto shop about the snake. She asked them if the could take the dash apart and look for this dang snake. This was not good timing for me. I had to leave town for work and a reptile adventure in Kansas. I would not be home for a week. Day 1 of the car being in the shop, the dash was torn out and still no snake. Day 2 at the shop and day 2 for me being on the road. The snake was found. My neighbor just happened to be at the shop during the capture and he knew about the snake being on the loss. They got the capture on video and posted it on u tube. When I got the phone call I was so happy. I told my wife and neighbor to tape up the container.
Just when you think this is the end of story, no there is a little more. My wife picked up the car later that day with the pain in butt snake. When she got home she put the container on the kitchen table and then took my son to baseball practice. When she got home the snake escaped again, even know it had been taped shut. My wife started search the house. My friend JR who was taking care of my snakes while I was gone, had came over to pick up the snake. They both stared looking for the snake after a 15 minute search they found her behind the piano.
She is now caged and doing just fine. I watch the video. It was hard to watch but I was so thankful. Thanks to Amy, JR, Jeff and everyone at Peterson Auto Body.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJ0lJajylxU
Peterson auto body snake removal
