The Snake Whisperer

When psychology student Marissa Bowsfield heard rumours of a ball python on the loose near her university campus, she felt driven to rescue it. Burnaby Mountain, British Columbia, isn’t exactly a native habitat for the cold-blooded creature, so the snake’s odds of surviving on its own were bleak. Get this: Marissa tracked the animal, without a haz-mat suit, found it on a mountain trail, by choice, and then, using her actual hands, carried it back to her residence on campus. She fed it water and warmed it up, with plans to bring it to an exotic-animal rescue organization.

Believe it or not, it’s the second time Marissa has saved a snake recently. She caught another python earlier in the summer. A local paper reports that four snakes have been found here so far, raising suspicion that they’ve all been let loose and abandoned by one individual. So there may be several more of these reptiles slithering around. (Why am I smiling right now? Because I don’t live anywhere near Burnaby Mountain. Currently, that fact pleases me.)

Marissa shrugged off her bravery. “If it was something else, like maybe a giant spider, I wouldn’t have acted the way I did, but snakes are okay,” she told CBC news. For me, it would be a toss-up. I might choose the giant spider.

Then again, I might choose to stay home.

Here’s hoping someone rounds up the rest of the pythons… for the snakes’ sake. Yeah, that’s it. Only thinking of the snakes. (Photo courtesy of Dr. Joseph Valks / FreeDigitalPhotos.net)