Massive python found in Oklahoma neighborhood
A slithery reptile that had been missing for six months was recently captured inside an Oklahoma City mobile home park.
The 8-foot albino golden child reticulated python, which had gone missing earlier this year, was found late last month inside of Burntwood Mobile Home Park, the site of its disappearance.
The male snake was found during the early morning hours of Oct. 25 by the occupants of one of the mobile homes under some trash receptacles as it attempted to seek warmth, according to the Oklahoma Exotics Rescue and Sanctuary.
Mike and Brittney Wilkins, the owners of the Oklahoma Exotics Rescue and Sanctuary, said the people who discovered the snake “placed him into a laundry basket and taped it shut” before notifying park maintenance. Upon being notified that the snake had been found, park maintenance called the rescue center and advised it to pick him up.
Despite previous reports that the snake was 13 feet long and had feasted on cats roaming the mobile home park, the pair said the snake had “not eaten since he was wild.”
“He has an upper respiratory infection, a few scuffs and cuts and mites,” the Wilkins said of the snake’s condition. “He was also in the middle of a bad shedding.”
The road to recovery for the reptile will take about half a year, and the snake was lucky to have been found prior to a dramatic temperature drop.
“His rehabilitation will take approximately five to six months, and we’re so glad he was caught before the large cold front hit the next weekend,” the Wilkins noted. “The cold would have killed him, as our weather [here] will not allow them to live through it. Pythons don’t hibernate in nature, so they don’t ‘know’ how to.”
The rescue center where the snake is being treated is seeking to name the python and has asked its social media followers to weigh in via a poll conducted on Facebook.
“We look forward to rehabilitating him and eventually finding him a knowledgeable, caring forever home where he can live out his life in relative luxury and peace,” the couple said of the snake. Mike and Brittney, who have built a lifestyle around the rehabilitation of certain reptiles, said albino pythons normally live about 20 to 30 years in captivity.