WI-Navarino python likely dead

[ER12]

A 10-foot python reportedly on the loose near the Navarino Nature Center is probably dead by now -- if the story wasn't a hoax, according to a Madison area herpetology expert.

Navarino Nature Center director Tim Ewing said a visitor took a photo of the python on Memorial Day weekend and crews have been searching for it on the 15,000-acre grounds ever since.

Ryan McVeigh, president and founder of the Madison Area Herpetological Society, said he is nearly certain the snake will never be found -- not alive, anyway.

McVeigh came up to the nature center last weekend and checked the area and, he said, found no tell-tale signs of a 10-foot python having ever been there.

McVeigh said there were many marshy and muddy areas where the snake would have left slide marks. He said he also looked for feces or droppings and found none.

He said he also checked likely places where the snake could have been hiding.

"Pythons are very sedentary," McVeigh said, noting that even when the snakes are hunting for food they will basically rest in one spot until something to eat passes by.





McVeigh said it's possible the story was fabricated and the original photo was of someone's pet.

"Sometimes people think it's funny to take their snake out and take a picture," he said.

McVeigh is not ruling out the possibility that someone really did abandon their pet snake at the Navarino Nature Center, but if that's the case, McVeigh said, the snake is almost certainly dead by now.

Pythons thrive in warm climates, such as Africa or the Middle East, McVeigh said, and can't live in temperatures below 55 degrees.

McVeigh noted the overnight temperatures in the week after Memorial Day dipped into the 40s. If the cold didn't kill the snake directly, it would have developed a respiratory infection and succumbed to that, McVeigh said.

He said the snake also could have fallen victim to the many predators in the area, including coyotes, cougars, bears and bob cats.

McVeigh said the python would have posed no threat to humans.

Ewing said he would not get into whether the story might have been a hoax.

"All I know is somebody local did take the picture and it was on Facebook," he said.

Ewing agreed with McVeigh that given the temperatures in the days after Memorial Day the python is no longer around.

"Knowing the temperatures we had, it's dead by now," he said.
http://www.shawanoleader.com/main.as...rticleID=32218

[mackynz]

Given our temps here, as mentioned there is no way it could survive. Sucks though