THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
May 9, 2021 at 17:55 JST
The reticulated python that escaped from its owner’s apartment in Yokohama on May 6. Image taken in 2021. (Provided by the owner)
YOKOHAMA--A police search is continuing for 3.5-meter-long python that escaped from its owner’s apartment in this city outside Tokyo on May 6 after it apparently broke the lock of its cage with a stranglehold.
Police mobilized 14 officers and police dogs for the search, but have drawn a blank.
The reticulated python, which weighed 13 kilograms, was kept by a man in his 20s at his home in Totsuka Ward, Yokohama in Kanagawa Prefecture. The apartment is situated in a residential area about 3 kilometers north of JR Totsuka Station. A golf course lies to the north of the apartment and a thickly wooded area to the south.
The owner reported the disappearance at 9:25 p.m. on May 6 after returning home around 9 p.m. and realizing an apartment window was open. He had been away since around 8 a.m.
The species is not venomous, but it can kill a person or an animal with its ability to suffocate prey, according to the Yokohama animal welfare center. Pythons are nocturnal and like to hide in dense shrubbery during the day or climb a tree.
A special permit is required to keep a reticulated python that is provided by local authorities under the law on welfare and management of animals, according to the animal welfare center.
The man received the permit from the Yokohama city government in 2017 based on his application he would house the snake in a reinforced glass enclosure.
The man told officials at the animal welfare center that he kept the python in a wooden cage measuring 60 centimeters by 90 cm and 50 cm high with a metal lock attached. But the lock was broken when the man got home.
“The snake grew bigger, so I put it in a larger cage than the original,” the man told officials at the animal welfare center.
Although he was required to apply for a fresh permit before he changed the snake’s cage, he neglected to do so.
Local residents were alarmed by the development and advised not to approach shrubbery.
(This article was written by Yoichiro Kodera and Kyoko Doi.)
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