A maintenance worker emptying trash cans at Brand Park in Glendale, California, got an unplanned wildlife encounter this week: a four-foot ball python curled up inside one of the bins.
The worker spotted the snake while clearing out the can and called for help rather than handling it directly, according to UPI. Animal control officers responded and brought the snake to Pasadena Humane, the shelter that serves the area, to be checked over for injury or illness.
No clues to how it got there
Officials said it was not clear how long the python had been in the trash can, where it came from, or whether it had escaped from a nearby home or been abandoned outright. Ball pythons are not native to California — they are native to West and Central Africa — but they are among the most commonly kept pet snakes in the United States, prized for their docile temperament and modest size, and escaped or abandoned pet reptiles turn up in odd places with some regularity.
"We don't see snakes like this every day, but when we do, we waste no time jumping into action," Pasadena Humane said in a social media post describing the rescue. The shelter said the snake is now resting in a temperature-controlled enclosure and, true to the species' fondness for humidity, has been enjoying "the occasional soak in his pool."
Pasadena Humane did not say whether the snake would be put up for adoption once cleared by staff or whether anyone had come forward to claim it. The shelter, which serves Pasadena, Glendale and several nearby San Gabriel Valley cities, fields exotic-pet and escaped-reptile calls on a regular basis — a reminder that Southern California's informal exotic-pet economy produces far more lost animals than headlines ever capture.