The search is on for a missing boa constrictor in central Kitchener.
The Kitchener-Waterloo Humane Society sent officers to search the neighbourhood around Mill Street and Courtland Avenue on Wednesday, after getting a report of a missing python in the area the previous night.
Investigators eventually learned that the snake was indeed on the loose – and that it is a boa constrictor, not a python.
Boa constrictors typically feed on birds or mammals. They are non-vemomous.
News of a possible snake on the loose was enough to get two young friends out of their house to try and find it.
“We’re out here trying to see if there’s a python out here,” said 12-year-old Jake Visser.
Visser said he had seen snakes before, but never come across one slithering in the wild.
His friend, seven-year-old Kingsley Yuke, brandished a hockey stick as he searched for the serpent.
Asked what he would do if he came across the snake, Yuke made a sound of surprise and started quickly walking away.
Kathy Innocente, the Humane Society’s director of operations, says anyone who encounters the boa constrictor should give them a call and otherwise stay away from it.
“We have officers that are prepared to go out … even if it’s in the middle of the night,” she said.
The organization can be reached at 519-745-5615 during business hours, and 1-877-289-9317 outside those hours.
The Humane Society has been attempting to get in touch with the animal's owner, but says it is too soon to tell whether any charges will be laid under the city's bylaw governing exotic pets.
In Kitchener, snakes more than two metres long must be registered with the Humane Society.
Innocente said she believed this snake was long enough that it should have been registered, but there was no indication that it ever had been.
With reporting by Victoria Levy
