A 17-foot albino Burmese python is back at home in Meadow Lakes after going missing for two weeks. The snake, named Sam, escaped while his owner was doing some spring cleaning.
The 100-pound python’s disappearance prompted the Matanuska-Susitna Borough to issue a safety advisory warning pet owners and parents to keep an eye on their dogs, cats and kids.
But the python apparently did no harm on his excursion and, eventually, it slithered back home to its owner, David Hyde.
“I was thrilled,” Hyde said. “Immediately started petting him and told him it was good to see him, and headed him for the bathtub.”
And that’s where the snake was Sunday: a yellow-and-white coil, getting clean and digesting a rabbit Hyde had fed it.
Hyde said he is happy to have his snake home, and he is going to be much more careful about making sure his doors are closed.
“He was a rescue animal,” Hyde said. “You know, after six or seven or eight years, you kind of get used to having it around.”
Animal control has no plans to issue a ticket for the incident.
Casey Grove is host of Alaska News Nightly, a general assignment reporter and an editor at Alaska Public Media. Reach him at cgrove@alaskapublic.org. Read more about Casey here.
