When the 11-foot reptile began slithering up the bank, a fishing expedition with two friends became a hunting expedition. "I didn't know what to think -- you just don't see this kind of thing in Indiana," Neal told the Journal & Courier newspaper. Neal, with his cellphone, called the state's Department of Natural Resources while his group tried to keep tabs on the fleeing snake. This was important because Burmese pythons, which are native to parts of Asia, certainly do not belong in Indiana and are a potential threat to children and pets.
Neal recalled that there had been small children playing nearby.
When DNR conservation officer Josh Schoon arrived on the scene, a decision was made to kill the cornered python, which presumably was a pet that outgrew its owner and was turned loose in the wilderness.
The officer wanted to phone for a rescue team but the snake had led the group to an area in which there was no cellphone service. Burmese pythons, Schoon said, can be aggressive and kill they prey by constricting, or squeezing it to death. The snakes can reach nearly 20 feet in length.
Schoon dispatched the animal with three well-placed shots and afterward told Neal and his friends it was theirs. The snake's hide is now stretched on a board at the home of Terry Linback, Neal's brother-in-law, who was part of the expedition.
Said Neal of the python: "I ain't never seen anything that big in the wild before ... it's kind of cute, though."
-- Image courtesy of the Indiana Department of Natural Resources
