Reptile & Amphibian Forums

We got a call today from a friend of ours that does dog rescue. A friend of hers had seen a large boa or python loose by the river. They went and picked her up and brought her to our house for me to look at her. She turned out to be about a 8-9ft burmese python that was severely abused. She had a stab wound in the side of her neck, a large chunk of skin was cut out of her side and she even had a microdermal implant crudely placed in her back. I called my herp vet and scheduled an appointment for 7:30pm, the earliest available. After I got of the phone we realized that the wound in her neck was very bad and I called back and told them we would be coming in for an emergency appointment. We took her in, she weighed 21lbs and was super sweet. She curled around the vet and even laid her head right on the vets cheek. The vet confirmed that this was absolutely, without a doubt a case of animal cruelty. They anesthetized her and placed her in an incubator so they could keep her warm and examine her wounds more closely.

After about an hour or so they came back and told us the unfortunate prognosis, the stab wound in her neck went the entire way through and came out the bottom, it pierced her trachea and esophagus and there was nothing that could be done. If her trachea and esophagus hadn't been compromised she would have been able to be rushed into emergency surgery but the vet said that with as slow as snakes heal and the severity of the injuries that surgery would just be too cruel and painful and probably wouldn't be successful.

We had no choice but to have her humanely euthanized, with snakes they like to watch them for 24 hours after the euthanasia but we will be able to pick her up tomorrow and we will be burying her at our home.

We have contacted the local news stations and the police(still waiting to hear back) and we are doing everything we can to find the sick people that did this to this poor creature.

I'm so upset right now, she was such a sweet snake, we were really hoping she would pull through with surgery but she was just too injured. I hope we can find who did this, it's just disgusting. We have many pictures of her but I will not post them here unless you guys really want me to, they are VERY graphic. If anyone would like to see them they are all publicly posted on my facebook page, you can find them here, but like I said, it isn't pretty.
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.169111056542410.34847.100003305493717&type=3
There are also more that I was tagged in but are not in my album.

Please share if you can.

Edited on April 2, 2012 at 15:16:36 by PHFaust.

This case showed up on the Pet Law Yahoo Group this morning, and what is so disgusting about it is that those *&^%$ at H$U$ are using this case to further their "ban-reptiles-for-their-own-good" agenda, offering a reward to find the culprit. REALLY, Wayne? You care that much about snakes? Seriously? What a bunch of friggin' hypocrites! They CONSTANTLY spew out all that garbage about how dangerous these snakes are, what a horrible threat to humanity,our helpless children, the environment, our cute 'n cuddly widdle puppies and kitties they are...and then they have the gall to act outraged when someone takes all their "advice" to heart and tries to rid the world of one of these devil-beasts. It's just like their constant reminding everyone of how innately vicious "pit bulls" are, because they were "bred to fight and kill", so dangerous that even little nursing puppies(Google Wildside Kennels)can't be trusted not to rip you to pieces and must be destroyed, all the while acting shocked and horrified when someone mutilates or sets fire to a "pit bull", in many cases simply because they hate and fear those dogs and feel that they are doing the rest of the world a big favor by torturing and killing one. H$U$ helped to create these "monsters", and have the nerve to act horrified when the pitchfork-toting villagers decide to rid themselves of this menace. OR, this could have been a case of an owner who was unable to keep the snake, and now, thanks in no small part to H$U$, was unable to find a new home for it because in-state options weren't there and out-of-state would mean committing a Federal felony, so the owner tried to "euthanize" the snake himself, not unlike the countless cases of unwanted horses being abandoned to starve and die, or being shot and left to die, when the ban on horse slaughterhouses was put into effect...again, a case of H$U$ pushing for a law that rendered those animals worthless in monetary terms, and left the door open for far more abuse than was already taking place. Wayne and his AR Mafia created this situation themselves.

Not to mention the blatant hypocracy of H$U$ silence on the Sweetwater Rattlesnake Roundups.

Not only their silence, but the fact that H$U$ owns a large chunk of Animal Planet, and acts as "advisors and consultants" on many AP programs, including "Rattlesnake Republic", which glorifies the roundups and the slaughter of rattlesnakes.
It goes to show just how these walking rectal orifices really feel about snakes.

Could you please give me a link to the yahoo page you are talking about? I can't believe this has made national news, we are all conflicted with the morality of the HSUS but we're hoping that their reward may help us find whoever is responsible.

It's not a Yahoo page; it's a group. It is highly moderated and is for the purpose of discussing and planning action to combat anti-animal ownership laws. You can find the group in the link. You must join to be able to read the posts.
H$U$ money will not find the perpetrator of this abuse. Taking or condoning money from this group amounts to taking money from the Mob(in more ways than one). They don't care about that animal, or any animal. They are just using this incident as a means of furthering their own vile agenda, of completely eliminating the ownership of reptiles and eventually all animals, period. This is just their way of trying to look good, of trying to look like they actually do care. If they want to show that they really DO, then they should put 50% of their own profits into hands-on animal care in shelters across the country, instead of the 1/2 a percent that they actually do. Wayne Pacelli is just using this, as he did with Zanesville, the Michael Vick(whom he says will make a great dog owner, btw)case, and countless other tragedies to their advantage, to chip away at our rights to own animals.
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