February 5, 2015

Vermin in Vermont must be very nervous right now: A boa constrictor is on the loose at Castleton State, a college in Vermont.  Luckily, we are told that area citizens should not be worried because the college assures us that  "the snake was not dangerous and trained to eat only frozen, dead mice." 

First off, what kind of educators are these people at Castelton State?  You can train me to eat nothing but cauliflower, but if I can't find any cauliflower, and I am really hungry, my natural instincts are going to take over, and I am going to eat anything that remotely looks appetizing: a bag of cookies for me, perhaps a chihuahua for Mr. Slinky.

Secondly, normally a tropical rain forest boa constrictor isn't going to last too long in a Vermont winter, especially given how New England has been hit with snow and cold this last week.  However, given that there may be frozen, dead mice all over the place this season, he may be able to hole up until the spring thaw (in Vermont, I believe that might come in July).

We actually had a small snake on campus at Southwestern Michigan College a couple of years ago. He wasn't an escapee from our zoology lab (we don't have a zoology lab), but a lost soul from the woods that lined the building he somehow worked his way into (I apologize for assuming the snake is a male, but that's just the way my mind works).  At the time, I thought about bringing a mongoose onto campus to take care of the snake, but many people don't realize just how destructive a mongoose can be. When imported to the West Indies and Hawaii to kill rats, they also destroyed lots of natural fauna.  It's the Veni, Vidi, Vici clause: they come, they see, they conquer.  (By the way, a rodent can't win either way, can they? Either the snake or the mongoose will kill them.  Rodents must be the underlings of the natural world.)

By the way, I wish there was more I could share about this story, but the source I used above links to the Rutland Herald, apparently the local paper in that part of Vermont. If you go to their website, you need to pay to see their "premium content," a strategy I also have noticed with my childhood home's local paper, Morgantown's Dominion Post.  Who are these people kidding?  You are small podunk newspapers, why would you make people pay to read your local stories?  Heck, just this week, I found The Siberian Times, which gave me access to all of their content, including a fascinating story about a 200 year old mummified monk that some buddhists argue is still alive and in deep meditation.  I don't know if that is true,  but I am guessing any escaped boa constrictor in Siberia that only eats frozen meat may be delighted to run into this delicacy.