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Snake in grass scares weed-wacking Holiday man

Photo from Joe & Roseann Saint Aubin

Joe Saint Aubin of R&J Lawn Service had a scare Tuesday on the job when he encountered a 4-foot boa constrictor while weed whacking. Joe Saint Aubin and his assistant try to contain the boa constrictor until deputies can arrive.

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By LISA A. DAVIS | The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 9, 2009

Updated: 07/09/2009 02:48 pm

HOLIDAY - When reptile trapper Richard Sullivan got the call Tuesday that an 8- or 9-foot python was caught outside a home in Pasco, he excitedly drove to the Tahitian Gardens home only to find "a little" 4-foot-long boa constrictor.

Sullivan, 51, of Tampa, has been handling snakes since he was a kid but for the man who first spotted the snake it sent chills up his spine and had him thinking of only one word at its sight: "run."

Joe Saint Aubin of R&J Lawn Service, was weed whacking in a yard of a "snowbird's" home on Cherrywood Drive Tuesday around 10:30 a.m. when something caught his eye in a downspout attached to the home. A large head of a snake peeked out of the gutter, he said, and he had accidentally nicked it with the weed whacker, giving it a pink nose. The reptile's hissing especially grabbed his attention.

"It was very upset," Saint Aubin recalled Thursday.

Saint Aubin ran to safety and then dialed 911. About 45 minutes later Pasco sheriff's deputies arrived. By then Aubin and his assistant had secured the snake on the grass with a long PVC pipe until deputies bagged it.

"I see a lot of snakes," he said. "Usually a snake will run but this one didn't."

Boa constrictors are not venomous and wrap their long bodies around their prey to suffocate them before making a meal out of them. Humans aren't usually their target, experts say.

Still, Saint Aubin said he rather keep his distance and worried the snake might have had babies near his customer's home.

Sullivan, the reptile guy, however, said Saint Aubin's fear is unwarranted.

"It was a boy so he's got nothing to worry about there," he said.

In the 20 years Sullivan's been capturing snakes, this was only the second boa constrictor he's handled in the Tampa Bay area. The first one he found under a dock when searching for rattlesnakes and it was already dead because of a recent frost. They can't handle the cold in this part of Florida, he said.

Saint Aubin wondered why the snake was in the downspout with its head out and pondered if it had somehow come from the home's roof. Sullivan said he thinks it probably went in head first because snakes can easily turn around in confined spaces. He said the snake had recently shed its skin and boa constrictors find hiding spots during the shedding process and stay in the shadows for the week or two it takes. This is why he thinks the snake was in the gutter spout.

"It just came out and was starting to look for food and water," he said.

Neighbors in the area told Saint Aubin they didn't know where the boa constrictor came from, he said. Sullivan's guess is that it was either released from its owner or escaped.

The snake scare comes a week after a pet Burmese python escaped from its cage in Sumter County and smothered the life out of a 2-year-old girl.

The incident shed new light on a bill U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson's, D-Fla., introduced earlier this year to ban such exotic snakes.

Saint Aubin would like to see such a ban passed to keep him – and others – safe on the job. He said in his 15 years in the lawn maintenance service he's had some close encounters with wildlife, including with an alligator, but the boa constrictor takes the prize.

"We don't need that in the neighborhood," he said.

Sullivan agrees boa constrictors and other exotic snakes don't need to be slithering around neighborhoods but, he says, legislation is not the way to go.

"If they end up passing a law to ban them, then it's going to be like marijuana," he said. "Everyone is going to be sneaking them in. It's going to be worse."

He thinks education is the better way to go. People need to learn more about snakes before they take on one as a pet. Most people, he said, don't' realize how large they get and either can't keep them contained or simply dump them into the wild.

Sullivan traps them for free when he gets a call because he doesn't want to see anyone injured.

"I just usually keep them," he said.

How many does he have?

"I've never really counted them," Sullivan said.

But it's in the dozens, he said.

Reporter Lisa A. Davis can be reached at (727) 815-1083.

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