Windy Tuck's husband was doing routine work on the family car outside their West Allis, Wisconsin, home over the weekend when something under the hood caught his eye — a long, dusty-looking shape he initially took for a stray hose.
It was not a hose.
At first, we thought it was a dirty hose. Then it turned around and started looking at us.
Windy Tuck, in an interview with TMJ4 News, reported by UPI
Coiled in the engine compartment was a roughly four-foot boa constrictor, very much alive and apparently unbothered by its surroundings. The family called the Milwaukee Area Domestic Animal Control Commission, known locally as MADACC, which in turn brought in reinforcements better suited to the job: Small Scale Reptile Rescue, a local nonprofit that specializes in exactly this kind of call.
Getting the snake out took some persuading. Rescue founder Cindy Steinle described climbing onto the hood herself to coax the animal from its hiding spot among the engine's wiring and hoses, an environment warm enough to double as an accidental reptile refuge, particularly as overnight temperatures cool heading into autumn.
Basically, what I did was I climbed up on the hood of the car and just kept irritating the snake and tickling it till it started moving.
Cindy Steinle, founder of Small Scale Reptile Rescue
Boa constrictors are not native to Wisconsin, or anywhere near it — they are popular in the exotic pet trade, and animal control officials say escaped or abandoned pet snakes turning up in engine bays, garages and window wells is a recurring, if rare, hazard of the hobby, especially once the weather turns. This one is now in MADACC's custody for a mandatory stray hold period, standard practice for found animals, giving a would-be owner a window to come forward before the boa is made available for adoption.
No word yet on whether anyone has claimed it — or on how, exactly, a boa constrictor came to be touring West Allis by way of somebody's car engine in the first place.
