SHARPES, Fla.,None — A homeowner in Sharpes said she was stunned to find a six-foot-long red-tailed boa constrictor staring her down in her own back yard.
The snake was quickly captured at the woman's home on Columbine Street, and has been taken to animal control. The woman who first saw the snake thought it was a towel or rag until it moved.
The Brevard County woman was in her back yard gardening when she found her self practically nose-to-nose with the reptile.
- Slideshow: Images of red-tailed boa
"I've been working and trimming my plants and I put the stool up here, and I bend down to get this one out and I raised up and I thought it was an old dirty towel or something, and then he moved and I started screaming," Smith said.
The Smiths called 911, and said animal control officers arrived within minutes to capture the creature. Once the six-foot-long boa constrictor was tucked into an animal crate, Donna Smith sighed with relief and snapped a photo.
"He wasn't aggressive at all. My face was this far from his face," Smith said.
By all accounts, the snake looked well-fed, so animal control officers and the people who live in the area believed it may be a neighbor's pet – which appears to be the case.
A teenage girl who lives a block away said she is going to animal control to claim the snake Tuesday.
Roy Smith, the animal control officer who caught the snake, described it as "laid-back" and likely escaped or was set free. He said the snake went into a cage without a fight.
"He was no threat to nobody at any time, so pretty good, pretty good snake as far as snakes go," Roy Smith said.
But snakes released into the wild have become a growing problem across the state. Just this fall, University of Florida researchers said Florida has the worst invasive reptile problem in the world.
Experts said there's no telling how many Burmese pythons are living in the wild. And regardless of whether this snake was an escaped pet or a wild reptile, it terrified Donna Smith.
"I was screaming. I ran through the back door to get my husband," she said.
WFTV
