Residents of an Ottawa neighbourhood are concerned after a five-foot-long (1.5-metre-long) boa constrictor escaped from its owner’s house.
Murphy the snake went missing in the Westboro neighborhood around 1 a.m. on Saturday, according to a post by his owner on Kijiji.
Local resident Rhea Fast, who says she was bitten by a rattlesnake at the age six, isn’t pleased that her neighbour had the boa constrictor in the first place.
“People are afraid to let their children go out and play in their backyards,” she said. Fast has been going door to door warning her neighbours.
Residents say it’s not the first time they’ve seen ads looking for a lost snake in the neighbourhood. A Facebook post from two years ago sought a different species of missing snake in Westboro.
Jeff Leiper, the local city councilor, says that he’s been fielding calls from concerned residents. He said it’s not yet clear whether there was a bylaw violation, but he doesn’t believe there is a safety risk.
“A snake of this size, while certainly an impressive one, is of very little risk to pets and humans,” he said. “Chances are that its prey will be a small bird or a mouse.”
Reptile expert Mike Lyon agreed. “A small boa constrictor like Murphy,” he said, “is no danger to humans whatsoever.”
But constrictor snakes do sometimes kill and injure humans. The U.S. Humane Society says 17 people have been killed by constrictors in the U.S. since 1978. Boas have caused dozens of serious bites.
Many Canadians will recall that two boys, ages 5 and 7, were killed by a different species of constrictor -- a rock python – after it escaped in 2013 from a pet store beneath the apartment where they were sleeping in Campbellton, N.B.
Lyon said Murphy is likely “looking for a warm place in the morning to warm up and then a cool place out of the sun in the afternoon.”
“He might come out at night time and move around a bit at night as well,” he added.
With files from CTV Ottawa’s Stefan Keyes
