SUN-HERALD (Charlotte, Florida) 18 February 05 Man captures 13-foot python (Garry Overbey)
Englewood: Chef Keith Kashishian literally took matters into his own hands Thursday when he came across a giant python sprawled across a busy street in Englewood.
Kashishian, 45, was driving along Fruitland Avenue late Thursday morning when he saw the motorist in front of him drive around a long object blocking the road.
"I thought it was a log or a palm frond fallen across the road," Kashishian said.
But it turned out to be a python -- about 13 feet of python, according to Kashishian, who said he's had experience handling snakes. He said he once caught a diamondback rattlesnake in the woods nearby.
Not wanting to see the reptile get run over, Kashishian stopped his truck and approached it -- you guessed it -- very carefully.
"He hadn't eaten in a while," said Kashishian, a chef at the Country Hound Cafe in Palm Plaza. "He was looking for food."
Though the python wasn't venomous, Kashishian knew it could deliver "a nasty bite."
"I grabbed him by the tail," he said. "He kept striking back at me."
Kashishian finally brought it under control by pinning its head to the pavement with a golf club a passerby gave him.
"It's important to hold the back of the head," he said.
He draped the snake around his shoulders and was thinking of taking it to a friend who works at Jungle Gardens in Sarasota. Just then, a pair of Charlotte County Sheriff's Office detectives -- Richard Kaufman and Cpl. Michael Krzysiak -- drove by and saw the man standing by the side of the road with a huge snake wrapped around his body. They stopped and called Charlotte County Animal Control.
"If they can't take him, I'm taking him," Kashishian told Animal Control officer Ronelle Zaloga after they loaded the python into a compartment in the side of her truck. He said his wife won't let him have snakes in their Grove City home, but he would take it to his friend at Jungle Gardens.
"This is my first snake call," said Zaloga, who's been with Animal Control about three months.
She took the snake to the Suncoast Humane Society on San Casa Drive, where, because it's classified as an exotic pet, it will be treated like any other stray animal.
"We can give it plenty of water and keep it comfortable," said Dean Humfleet, the shelter's director of operations, but the shelter won't feed it its usual diet of live rodents or rabbits "unless we can find (a supplier) with an already deceased rat or chicken."
Humfleet said it's not uncommon for big snakes to be brought to shelters. He believes this one is a female.
"Usually, they've escaped (from someone's home), or they've been stolen," he said. "Sometimes the owners are afraid to come forward because they're fearful the snake may have harmed another animal."
If it's not claimed after five days, the python will be turned over to a serpentarium, a herpetologist or "someone else who knows how to care for snakes," Humfleet said, adding that wouldn't rule out Kashishian.
Man captures 13-foot python