A 13-foot python was seized from a N.Y. home.Photo:NYS Department of Environmental Conservation/Facebook
NYS Department of Environmental Conservation/Facebook
A 13-foot snake was seized from a home in August and donated to a zoo after the snake’s owner admitted he wasn’t prepared for how fast the snake would grow.
The PEOPLE Puzzler crossword is here! How quickly can you solve it? Play now!
Upon arriving at the home, ECO Hull found that the snake (which weighed 80 pounds, measured 13 feet, 2 inches and was still growing) was being housed in a 4-to-5-foot tank. The reptile was in good health.
Per the Facebook post, the snake’s unidentified owner said he “was not prepared for how fast the animal would grow and that he recognized he could no longer care for it.”
The owner was given tickets for possession of wildlife as a pet and for possessing dangerous wildlife without a permit and the snake was removed from the home and donated toFort Rickey Discovery Zooin Rome, N.Y., which has the permits required to house the snake.
Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Per the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FFWCC), Burmese pythons are considered an invasive species in the state and are native to India, lower China, the Malay Peninsula and some islands of the East Indies.
The organization says that the largest Burmese python ever captured in Florida was 18 feet long, although the average size of the adult snake is 6 to 9 feet.
source: people.com