Trinidad: Big snake mistaken for a ‘stuffed toy’ in wash tub

A excited Polly Boodoo touches the 7foot Boa Constritor that was found at her home in Mon Desir Road, Rousillac.

(Trinidad Guardian) “The snake big like a man’s neck!”

That’s how a Rousil­lac res­i­dent de­scribed the snake that slith­ered in­to her neigh­bour’s wash tub when she made the fran­tic call to the Forestry Di­vi­sion for help.

 
Sav­it­ri and her moth­er 78-year-old mom Pol­ly Boodoo were greet­ed with the maca­juel curled up in the wash tub when they re­turned to their Mon De­sir Road home on Wednes­day morn­ing af­ter vis­it­ing the health clin­ic.

“My care­giv­er say ‘come and see if this is a stuffed toy in the sink.’” She was not ex­pect­ing to see a snake when she turned on the light from her cell­phone.

The 7foot Boa Constritor found in a washtub at the home of Polly Boodoo in Mon Desir Road, Rousillac, yesterday.

“It is not a stuffed toy. It is a huge snake,” said Sav­it­ri. Sav­it­ri Boodoo did not dare go close to it. In­stead, she ran across the road and called her neigh­bour.

Her moth­er, how­ev­er, was very ex­cit­ed.

 
To her daugh­ter’s dis­may, she kept go­ing up close to the rep­tile to get a good look.

“You go come and see a big snake and you will not feel good and ex­cit­ed,” de­clared the el­der­ly woman.

She al­so opined that it could have been Lord Shi­va, a Hin­du de­ity who has a snake around his neck. The sev­en and a half feet, 70-pound snake was cap­tured by Game War­den 2 Andy Singh and his col­leagues Bisham Mad­hu and Je­re­my Din­di­al.

It was sub­se­quent­ly re­leased in the south­ern wa­ter­shed game sanc­tu­ary be­tween Quinam and Mon Di­a­blo beach­es.

Singh ex­plained that these snakes were not ven­omous, but could grow up to 13 feet and weigh up to 150 pounds.

With­in the last eight years, he said they have been re­ceiv­ing nu­mer­ous calls about snakes be­ing found in peo­ple’s prop­er­ties in Rousil­lac and sur­round­ing ar­eas.

He at­trib­uted these sight­ings to a lot of de­for­esta­tion tak­ing place, in­clud­ing the San Fer­nan­do to Point Fortin High­way, which is de­stroy­ing their habi­tats.

He said flood­ing would al­so force them to find al­ter­na­tive places to rest.