Don’t kill that snake!
Columbia County recently had an odd visitor in the form of a Pituophis catenifer, or khaki bullsnake.
It turns out a Grovetown man saw a snake trying to get into his chicken coop, but rather than shooing it away or killing it, he tried to identify it.
“He immediately realized that it wasn’t a native snake, and so he called us.” Jeremiah Ford, field supervisor for the Grovetown Animal Shelter, said. “It was a big snake, at least six feet long, and he figured it was probably someone’s pet.”
And it was.
A family living not too far away lost the reptile after it escaped its enclosure. Bullsnakes, like pythons, are non-venomous and are excellent escape artists; but, according to the Lake Forest College Ethogram Report, they are often mistaken for rattlesnakes because of their coloration, scale pattern and defensive behavior.
When threatened or cornered, the bullsnake will rear up and vibrate its tail to mimic a rattler.
Bull snakes are popular with reptile hobbyists because of their temperament, and they are legal to own in the state of Georgia because they are non-native and non-invasive. It is illegal to own a native species in Georgia.
With a range that extends from southern Canada to Northern Mexico and from California east into Indiana, the bull snake can exist just fine in the local climate, but the snake wouldn’t be considered an invasive species here, according to Ford.
Like other captive born wildlife, being hand fed, snakes lack the skills to hunt prey and don’t develop the senses to avoid predators. The local hawks would consider such a snake a delicacy, like Fois gras. So, the family thought their serpentine slitherer was lost for good. Even so, the family put up signs in the neighborhood.
It would be social media that would reunite the family with their pet.
According to Ford, the son in the family was tooling around on Facebook and saw a picture posted up on social media by the Columbia County Animal Control and it was his pet broadcast to the computer screen and the reptile was returned home no worse for the wear.
Ford says that while it is rare to get a reptile boarder, the animal shelter gets an exotic reptile from time to time, probably more often than most people would think.
“We’ve gotten plenty of iguanas, but so far, no tegus,” Ford said.
Scott Hudson is the Senior Investigative Reporter and Editorial Page Editor for The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com
