NBC 10 (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) 21 September 05 Sid The Python Finally Found
Sid the python, the escaped snake who wandered Bucks County for a month, is back home after she was caught Tuesday.
The 13-foot, 100 pound snake was spotted slithering across a field in Plumstead Township.
Soon, an officer was on the scene, along with two backups, to bag Sid.
After some snake wrestling, the three officers were able to get Sid into a patrol car.
The Burmese python went missing on August 15, after she apparently managed to push her way through the glass doors of her 8-foot by 10-foot cage and get out the door while owner Thomas Esbensen worked the night shift at Kmart.
"She's very strong and powerful. She pushed the door open and then she must have pushed the back door open. It wasn't locked," Esbensen said. Sid was gone when Esbensen returned to his Plumstead Township home.
Esbensen speculated that she probably didn't get far because she moves slowly with a full belly.
"It's already well-fed, so it's not on the hunt for something right now. It's not going to attack you," Esbensen said.
If Sid did get hungry, Esbensen said, she would go after small animals, like a groundhog or a cat.
Esbensen nurtured Sid from an 18-inch-long baby. He said that the python has become more than just a pet to curl up with. "It's my pet. Like I said before, it's like losing a girlfriend, it's like losing a part of you," Esbensen said.
Esbensen said that Sid is not poisonous but does have a vicious bite.
http://www.nbc10.com/news/5000289/detail.html?rss=phi&psp=news

BUCKS COUNTY COURIER-TIMES (Pennsylvania) 21 September 05 Sid the snake found safe and sound (Pamela Batzel)
Plumstead: Your kids and cats are safe from Sid, the 13-foot-long Burmese python on the loose for the past six weeks.
On Tuesday night she was captured 100 yards from her Plumstead home in a field of tall grass on Saw Mill Road near the Route 611 bypass.
Police learned of Sid's location from two New Britain men who saw her sliding into the field as they drove down the road at about 7:30 p.m.
"We saw the whole snake. We immediately backed the car up and said that's it," said Jeff Berman, who spotted the snake with Joe Murphy. "You don't see snakes that big in Doylestown."
When police arrived, Murphy walked into the waist-high grass with Plumstead Police Chief Duane Hasenauer, who went in armed with a flashlight and muscle.
Hasenauer found the reptile 50 feet into the field and grabbed her by the tail. His only thought after weeks of phone calls from residents: "You're not going to get away."
But it was a tug of war with the 100-pound snake, he said.
"It was a standoff."
A Doylestown officer had to help pull her out, Hasenauer said.
Police also used dog ropes - sticks with nooses on the end - to help move her and get her into the trunk of a cruiser. The nooses helped contain her head, Berman said.
But the snake did manage to bite Doylestown Township Officer Dorothy Kreuter, who tried to reach behind the snake's head to keep it from biting.
"It didn't look too bad; she said she was fine," Hasenauer said, but added that Kreuter was getting it checked out.
It was up to owner Thomas Esbensen, who lives on the other side of the overpass, to get her out of the trunk.
Kneeling next to the cage from which she escaped in mid-August, Esbensen said he was happy to have his pet of 13 years back home.
"There was a lot of danger out there for her," he said. "She doesn't look hurt. I was afraid she'd fall out of a tree, get run over by a car or bitten by an animal."
Sid, who lives in a wooden box with sliding-glass doors on its side, was coiled in the back, hissing.
Unhappy as she may be, Esbensen, the chief and many in Bucks County are happy.
Hasenauer had received as many as 10 calls a day until about two weeks ago. Calls diminished, but they still came in.
A Quakertown woman recently phoned police, saying she had not walked in a park near her home since she had learned of Sid's escape.
"I'm happy for [Esbensen]. He has his pet back, and I'm happy for the people who were worried," Hasenauer said.
http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/111-09212005-544364.html