Ball python, lizard turn up in Brandon driveway, backyard

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This article was published 26/07/2017 (2973 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Two non-indigenous reptiles were found loose in Brandon within as many days.

A ball python blocked Ren Bouchard’s vehicle from advancing up his driveway on Sunday evening and a bearded dragon welcomed George Tahhan in his backyard on Monday afternoon.

Between the two reptiles, the ball python created the most anxiety.

“I’m glad that I found it and not my kids,” Bouchard said, adding that he’s confident his 11-year-old daughter wouldn’t have received the snake very well and was “terrified” to have learned about its discovery after the fact.

Bouchard’s fiancée was pulling their vehicle into the Viscount Crescent driveway (near Riverheights School) when from the passenger seat he spotted the snake blocking their path.

Bouchard initially assumed it was a garter snake, so he got out of the vehicle to move it aside.

As he approached the snake, he came to realize it was much larger than he’d anticipated — approximately four feet in length — and certainly nothing he was wiling to pick up with his bare hands.

He used a pool skimmer to lift the snake into a plastic tote bin, where the snake remained until a Brandon Police Service animal control officer picked it up and brought it to the Brandon Hills Veterinary Clinic where it’s being kept until its owner is tracked down.

Bouchard said he suspects the python had been slithering about the neighbourhood for several days, since his neighbours reported that their dogs had been acting weird for approximately a week.

While Bouchard has his suspicions about where the snake came from, his snake sighting at approximately 10:30 p.m. on Sunday was the first one to be reported.

The bearded dragon discovery took place shortly after 4 p.m. on Monday, when Tahhan found the scaled creature in the grass of the fenced-in backyard of his property at the intersection of Princess Avenue East and 10th Street East.

He picked up the little reptile and brought it inside his house, placing it in a small container with holes punched into it.

His roommate looked after the critter while he went out for a few hours, and by that evening his daughters had named it Gandalf.

Uncertain as to how he might take care of a bearded dragon and afraid he would cause it further harm, Tahhan shared his story with the administrators of the Brandon and Area Lost Animals Facebook page, who quickly found someone knowledgeable enough about lizards to take it off his hands.

Although the lizard appeared to be quite young and dehydrated, it still appeared healthy enough to survive, Tahhan said, adding that he hopes to see little Gandalf reconnected with its owners.

BPS Const. Grant McKay said that while they were called in to deal with the snake, they’d only learned about the bearded dragon through social media.

This kind of thing “doesn’t happen very often,” McKay said.

Although encountering a ball python on his driveway was a frightening experience, Bouchard said the snake was “beautiful” and appeared to be in healthy shape.

“I never thought in my life that I would find a snake like this in Brandon,” he said.

» tclarke@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @TylerClarkeMB