Giant Black Snake Sighted
Posted by: Loren Coleman on May 31st, 2008
Chad Arment, author of Boss Snakes: Stories and Sightings of Giant Snakes in North America, passes along this new case.
The story is from the Tampa Bay’s 10 News in St. Petersburg, Florida, for today.
Huge snake spotted
Hudson – The snake was spotted along Bear Creek River behind a home on Mill Creek Lane about two months ago. It’s an area with manicured landscaped lots with towering mature trees surrounding it and lots of wildlife like turtles and birds.
Resident, Amy Wiegman, spent part Friday afternoon watering plants in her backyard and says “It’s an absolutely beautiful spot. It’s extremely beautiful.”
But Wiegman says the snake sighting has her on edge. She had just moved in and was having some work done at her home recently when a worker noticed something odd.
“It was a black snake. He said it was about 15 feet long and about as thick as a man’s thigh.”
“I was a little shocked especially after he told me that it was eating a crane.”
The green anaconda, here shown in the National Zoo, can appear to be black, in some settings or lighting.
Phil Goodman is the wildlife trapper who was called out to the scene after the snake was spotted. He says it was either a Burmese Python or a Green Anaconda. The Green Anaconda can get so dark that it actually looks black. The snakes are the biggest in the world and can weigh several hundred pounds. Goodman says he found tracks the snake left behind but after making several visits to the area in the following weeks he hasn’t been able to find the snake.
That’s got a lot of people like Ellen Smith feeling a little uneasy. “We have a lot of children around here that come along the lake and they fish all during the day. They don’t even know there’s a snake out here.”
But the Beacon Woods Civic Association did send out letters to warn residents. The association called in the wildlife trapper and made his number available for anyone who might spot it. But Smith says she’d like to see more done. “I’m afraid to even walk out into my backyard because I have a lot of trees and I look up in the trees before I even go outside.”
Smith and her neighbors should be cautious because the Burmese Python likes to slither up trees and hang out near the water. That’s got a lot of people rethinking how they enjoy their waterfront property now. Wiegman says “I won’t come any further than about right here to water. I watch and kind of keep my eye out and I don’t come out in the evening at all.”
The trapper says these types of snakes can kill people but it’s uncommon. They will eat small animals, pets and anything they can fit in their mouths.
If you see one you need to get away from it and call authorities immediately. In Pasco County their animal services department does not handle calls about snakes they refer residents to wildlife trappers like Phil Goodman instead.
Goodman says neither of the snakes is native to Florida. He says more than likely someone had the snake as a pet and released it.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
That is a monster snake! I have no doubt in my mind that there are bigger and more monster size snakes out there in the most remote swamp terrain.
YIKES!! One never knows when or where dangerous critters will wiggle out of the woodwork, when you least expect ’em!
Let’s be careful out there…
the snake could be a intoduced Green anaconda or a new type of anaconda that evolved from a intoduced one.
I have heard it said by some wild animal control folks on a couple of Animal Planet shows that the Burmese Pythons at least have been released often enough that there is a breeding population of them in Florida.
There was a report on CNN or Fox that there is an estimated population of 30,000 pythons in the Everglades.
What we need is a python eating cryptoid.
Dave Barry, who has written many columns on how Florida is teeming with lethal and aggressive wildlife, all of it with something personal against him, will no doubt have this on his blog soon.
Don’t remember if I shared this story before, but a friend of mine who lives on the Tomoka River in Ormond Beach, FL witnessed a huge snake wrestle an alligator over 7 foot long behind his house on a canal leading to the river. He knew a large snake was around when he saw the shed skin of the creature near his boat a few weeks before he saw this!
Snakes, gators, panthers, bears; these are all possible animals that can cause harm to a person who is somewhere at either the wrong time or where they shouldnt be. Living in an area where these animals exists means your accepting the risks, if you arent comfortable with that, its no excuse to wipe them off the earth. I say deal with it or move.
Galea:
Maybe I misread but I don’t quite think anybody was talking about killing the snake. They called out a “trapper,” not quite a “hunter.” Smith just wants to “see something done,” she does not say what that was. The trapper did not talk about killing the snake.
It’s quite natural to be scared of a 15-foot snake. At least that is what I would act like.
Anyway, good story. That is truly a “Boss Snake.”
Yeah, but this is in Florida. Florida’s idea of stopping anything is to kill it. Thats why I hate living here.
Alligator somehow got inside a woman’s house. Instead of trying to relocate, they kill it. There were other stories about alligators deemed “menace” or something similar, they killed them too. I know we’re talking about a snake and not a alligator, but I highly doubt that means anything.
With 90% accuracy you can pretty much say if they find it, they’re going to kill it.
Geh forgot to mention those “menace” alligators weren’t doing anything. I think maybe one of them killed a dog or something. They just happened to be a in public place that “shouldn’t” have alligators.
I can say that, when a gator (about eight feet long, I think) took up residence in a canal running behind our residential area in Vero Beach, FL, around 1975, the state guys did catch it alive and ship it somewhere. I didn’t understand why they even bothered, since the canal bank was a good ten or fifteen feet high and very steep, but someone must have thought it a threat. When a much rarer crocodile turned up on the beach side of town, it was trapped alive with the announced intent of releasing it in the Everglades, although the animal foiled the scheme by escaping and never showing its snout again.
Apparently its just in Tampa then >.>
There’s been at least 4 reports that I remember them killing the gator in.