Mighty python found slithering in Mather
A python that was found in a Mather backyard Sunday is now staying in a reptile rescue shelter in Morgantown, W.Va.
Bill Lubich, an officer with the Pennsylvania Game Commission, holds a python that was found in a Mather home’s backyard Sunday.
MATHER – When Lou Pecjak tosses a few leftover scraps of food into his backyard, he expects it to attract small rodents, birds and maybe a stray cat or two. That’s not what he found Sunday coiled up in his backyard in Mather.
“I looked over and wondered what was piled up in the yard about 500 feet from the house,” Pecjak said. “When I got closer to it I was like, ‘Holy crap, that’s a python.'”
Pecjak said he suspects the seven-foot-long snake was living there for a while because last month he thought he saw the serpent slithering through the weeds behind his Seventh Street home, prompting him to do some weed-whacking. He hadn’t seen the snake again until Sunday, and he has no idea where it came from.
“That’s a mystery,” he said. “I’m assuming it’s somebody’s pet because they’re not native to this area.”
Pecjak said he called state police and other animal control agencies but was “getting the run-around.”
“Greene County has no one or really any resources to pick up exotic animals like this,” he said.
He was able to get ahold of Bill Lubich, an officer with the southwest region of the Pennsylvania Game Commission, who drove all the way from Ligonier, Westmoreland County, to get the snake. Lubich used a lasso before picking up the snake with his bare hands and putting it in a raccoon cage.
Lubich, who’s worked with animals in his job for decades, said he’s never dealt with anything poisonous or exotic – until Sunday.
“After 32 years, that tops the list,” he said. “I’ve had an escaped emu call once, but that’s not as exciting as a tropical snake.”
Lubich said the state Fish and Boat Commission usually handles reptile calls, but their office was closed over the weekend and he was the closest officer available to take care of the snake. He said that when he first got the call he suspected it was just a large native snake, but “sure enough, it was a python.”
Lubich agreed with Pecjak that the snake was probably a pet because it was healthy, well fed with no signs of damage, and friendly.
“I didn’t know how friendly he would be, but someone had obviously handled it before because he was very calm – lucky for me,” Lubich said. “Either he escaped or someone let it go.”
After he got it into the cage, some of the neighborhood children were able to touch and pet the snake.
Kim Colley, of Mather, was able to get pictures of the snake.
“It was pretty amazing,” she said. “You don’t see that kind of stuff around here.”
Lubich contacted M&M Reptile Rescue and Rehoming in Morgantown, W.Va., and they took in the snake to foster it.
“They’ll try to find a new home for it,” Lubich said.
He said that if the snake’s owner is missing the snake, they can call the rescue group at 304-685-8201.