[Cover photo in public domain from Pixnio]

I love it when someone comes into my office to tell me how big something is and they exaggerate by about 50%.  In fact, when someone comes in my office with some story about a big fish, or a big owl or any such story, I usually assume an automatic discount for the size they’ve described by about 30% or more.  So, it wasn’t that alarming when some fellow workers came in my office with big eyes and telling me about the huge snake almost six feet long that was on the back steps of the building where I worked on campus.  I smiled a little and said, “ok, I’ll go check it out.” I was expecting about a two to three foot skinny little grass snake.

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[The small snake in the photo above is about what I was expecting to see]

To my surprise when I got out on the veranda on the back side of the building and looked down the steps, there was indeed a particularly large (up to 5 ½ foot long) and very thick black rat snake sitting at the bottom of steps.  He clearly felt a bit trapped by the student and worker body that was now showing up to see him, but to his credit, he’d remained fairly still and held in his corner waiting for an escape route that wouldn’t be coming. I didn’t have any equipment at work, but the security staff had been called and apparently, they’d dealt with smaller versions of this before. 

It wasn’t an option to just send the students off and leave him be.  He was just too big to be near the student population.  Someone could be startled by him while walking down the steps and hurt themselves trying to get away.  In fact, while not a poisonous snake, he was large enough that a bite from him would have smarted good and could have (likely would have) had germs or disease.  So, he had to be removed.

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[The snake in the photo above is the same variety and not quite as large as the one we had on campus that day]

After a few minutes of us watching it and keeping it trapped carefully, the security staff showed up.  I was hoping they did not intend to destroy it as they are great for reducing mice and rat populations.  Apparently, this one had been feasting for months.  When I heard the staff talking, I knew they planned on catching and releasing it out in the woods.  The thing was, they showed up one by one, each of them, like me, expecting to see something much smaller. 

Watching the security guard’s reactions as they arrived was almost as fun as watching the snake and the students looking at it.  One by one, they arrived and approached the stairs from the yard behind the school.  They couldn’t see the snake until they came around to the patio and looked into the stairwell area.  Often there were people talking to them as they approached telling them how big it was, but until they actually saw it, they, just like me, didn’t believe it.  Then, when they saw it, to a person, they would jump back and recalculate their plan and call for more backup and equipment. 

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After about four guards had shown up, finally, one of them showed up with a large plastic pipe.  I knew he had the right idea.  Snakes love to escape down tunnels.  By offering an end of the long pipe to the snake, his instincts would take over and he’d think he was going to take it as an escape route. The guard with the pipe lowered it carefully towards the snake’s head. 

The snake pulled back at first, but then saw the pipe’s opening and as expected, he started into it.  The officer then pinned the snakes head down to the concrete with the pipe.  Immediately upon the snake being pinned by the pipe, two officers rushed in with gloved hands.  One small female officer was the brave one who reached behind the snake’s head and grabbed it and pulled its head back out of the pipe.  The other office had grabbed and supported the body.  A third officer came with a large dark sack that they could place the snake in. 

Of course, the snake wasn’t thrilled with this whole turn of events. As the officer pulled its head out of the pipe, it tried to turn and bite her, but she had it directly behind the head and snakes can’t swivel their head like an owl.  So, all he could do was open his mouth agape and hiss to express his displeasure.  He did that quite a bit as they carried him over to the sack.  Once he’d been placed into the sack and the top shut, he settled down.  Crisis averted, the officers took off with the large predator and took him to the woods near the zoo where they knew he’d have plenty of field mice to snack on. All in a day’s work for the campus security staff.  I loved it because in most scenarios when snakes show up in a neighborhood or a campsite, there’s no staff around to deal with them and I’m the guy all my friends want to “take care of it”.  Nice, this time, I could just sit back and watch.

[The cover image at the top, being held by the biologist, is a fairly good representation of the type and size of snake we were dealing with that day]

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Why not read the next story in this series: Tales from Oklahoma #3: The Alligator Snapping Turtle of Jenks

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