The other reason we think there may be more escapees in summer is that there are owners who like to take their snakes outside to enjoy the warmer weather. Then as soon as the warmer weather starts, they come out because they’re more active naturally in heat. Some snakes may have escaped months ago and haven’t been as active during colder weather, “maybe lying dormant somewhere. “There are a couple of theories why this is happening,” says Nicola White, the senior scientific officer for exotics at the RSPCA. It is still too early to say if the number of stray snakes reported this year will be higher than previous years, but they are more likely to be reported in the summer. People have suggested Cordelia could still be in the flat somewhere, but I think she’ll have gone for a wander round.”
“They are very intelligent creatures – which is what makes them good escapists as well. “In the day, she just roams around my flat,” said her owner. In May, the Manchester Evening News reported that Cordelia, a royal python – thought to be pregnant – had escaped from her home in Wythenshawe. They looked after it and called the RSPCA, who came to collect it.” “They covered it up a bit with a hi-vis bib because someone who seemed to know about snakes thought it was exotic and could be cold, even in heatwave London. The organisers put it in a large plastic tub, says Kate Carter, the Guardian’s life & style editor, who was running that day. “Reptiles, particularly snakes, can be extremely good escape artists and will take the opportunity of a gap in an enclosure door or a loose-fitting lid,” Sanders says.īefore a race in Battersea Park, south-west London, last week, a snake, thought to be a baby boa constrictor, was found by a runner who had gone into the bushes to relieve himself. An RSPCA officer, Jill Sanders, caught it the next evening – it had slithered off and was hiding in the flat. It is thought it escaped from there and somehow made it to Saunders’ flat through the plumbing.Ī few days earlier, a woman in Kensington, west London, woke up to find a 1-metre (3ft) royal python curled up in bed next to her. He called a friend to help deal with it the python was rescued by a nearby exotic pet shop. Stuart Saunders, who is visually impaired, tried to pick up the strange tubular shape on the floor, thinking it was a piece of insulation that had fallen from somewhere, and realised it was a huge snake. Just over a week ago, a 2.4-metre (8ft) python was discovered in a man’s bathroom in Exeter after he heard toiletries and his toothbrush crashing to the floor, and went to investigate. This seems to be turning into the summer of escaped snakes. Fawbert, who had been on a snake-handling experience day earlier in the year for his birthday (“I quite like snakes”), called the RSPCA, worried that people would be scared and try to kill it. “I just said: ‘Leave it, it’s not a danger to anyone.’” Except to the pigeon, he adds. It was completely without explanation.” A crowd gathered. “I wasn’t scared because it was quite obviously motionless – the bird was halfway down its throat and I thought: ‘There’s no way that snake’s going anywhere.’”Ī couple of other people had stopped, so he asked if anyone knew where it had come from. “If it had been slithering around, I’d be more freaked out because you don’t know what it’s going to do,” says Fawbert, an editor at, who posted a picture of the gruesome scene on Twitter on Saturday. It wasn’t moving, but the head of a pigeon was disappearing within the snake’s coils. Dave Fawbert says he wasn’t alarmed when he came across a boa constrictor on a high street in east London after popping out to buy a loaf of bread.
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