Scottsdale firefighters called to 3 big snake removals in 1 month

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - Scottsdale firefighters picked up a couple of loose pythons in the past month and on Monday night, they picked up yet another large snake: a 7 foot long boa constrictor!

All three snakes -- two 9 foot long albino Burmese pythons and one 7 foot long red tail boa, were found in the same Scottsdale neighborhood near 75th Street and Miller -- clearly not their natural habitat. We're not sure if they belong to the same person, but we do know they made it a little tricky for firefighters to capture them.

"We don't know if someone has nearly abandoned them because they couldn't take care of them anymore possibly they have just escaped from a cage that was not secure enough to house this type of thing," said Danielle Marchand, Executive Curator of the Phoenix Herpetological Society.

PHS is caring for two of the snakes. The third was claimed by his owner.

"If it's a grumpy snake, it's gonna give me bites, it's got 150 razor sharp teeth.. this will give you stitches.. there's no doubt about it," said Marchand.

Boa constrictors and pythons are pretty strong. They can push outside their own cages. While PHS does get regular calls about snakes, it's unusual for them to get three calls about this kind of snake in just one month.

"Since you know I'm the youngest one on our crew right now, they kind of send me to go do the job," said firefighter Kelly Ranft, who grew up with snakes and says she was excited to capture the boa.

"There was one or two of us holding the bag and one of us trying to shove the snake in the bag. He did want to.. he did a u-turn half way in there," she said.

Ranft says some were shocked to see the snake, while others asked to pet it!

The boa and python are safe and sound at PHS until their owners claim them.