JOHOR BARU, Jan 29 — Singapore’s popular shopping district, Orchard Road, had an unexpected visitor this morning: A three-metre long python.
It was found by the public under a concrete bench outside the Orchard Road MRT station near Tang Plaza this morning.
A video posted on Facebook showed five men, who are believed to be from a pest-control company, called in to capture the snake.
The men had difficulty putting the snake into a fabric bag and towards the end of the video, one of them was bitten.
Singapore daily, Straits Times (ST), contacted several experts on the incident and they criticised the poor handling of the snake.
“The snake was stepped on and handled very roughly,” Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Acres) deputy chief executive Kalai Vanan told ST.
He added that snakes are wild animals protected by law and deserve better handling and care.
Veteran wildlife expert Subaraj Rajathurai also took issue with the way the snake was handled, citing video clips showing how it was being dragged.
He told ST that pest control firms should not be called to handle snakes.
“You call pest control for rats. Snakes, which are wild animals, are not pests. These firms are not usually trained to handle such animals,” said the founder of Strix Wildlife Consultancy.
Subaraj said it was likely the snake emerged from the drainage system connected to the underground Stamford Canal that runs along Orchard Road.
Earlier this month, it was reported that a family found a python in the toilet of their Housing Development Board (HDB) flat in Eunos.
Last October, a woman was bitten by a python outside her Sembawang Drive home.
Reticulated pythons are endemic to Singapore. They are the most common type of snakes found in the country, feeding on rats and other small animals.
