Boa Constrictor Escapes Gifts of Good Will

Workers at a Goodwill sorting center in Fort Worth, Texas, were stunned to discover a live albino boa constrictor mixed with donations Thursday, reported this week's NBC New York.

NBC wrote that this reptile friend had been found in a pile of clothes and could have come from one of 38 Goodwill donation centers in the Fort Worth area. Deputy Director James Murphy had stated that he had to go through "several steps" before arriving at his destination. ease:

"I just do not know what's the context of how this snake came to us," said Goodwill Deputy Director James Murphy. "This snake has several steps to get here."

"I do not know if anyone can have [dropped it off] maliciously, "said Murphy." Maybe they wanted to get rid of it and did not really know how, or maybe they just wanted to heat up. "It was in a pile of clothes.

Boa constrictors are not native to the Texas region but may become invasive in the future. They are not toxic, but tend to be on the broadest side of the snake spectrum (although the red-tailed boa is smaller in size than the more massive snakes). Boa constrictors hunt by pressing their prey until they lose consciousness due to lack of oxygen in the brain.

Although boa constrictors may pose a threat to human life in the event of mishandling, NBC reported that, fortunately, Murphy had prior experience with large snakes and was able to safely remove it from the basket of clothes given in which he had been found.

It turns out that the snake is called Toki and that Goodwill staff was able to reunite it with its original owner, Austin Pair, 22, from Keller, Texas, the Star-Telegram announced. According to the newspaper, Pair would have left the snake well fed and unattended in an aquarium during a trip, but would have returned to find it missing. After extensive research, he thought that the snake had escaped permanently, until a friend informed him of media reports about his recent discovery. .

"I had to deal with a lid," Peer told Star-Telegram. "He was already gone, so I filmed him, reinforced him, put some weight on him, but he pushed the light and disappeared."

Pair added that Toki had been missing for months and that his best guess was that he had settled into a couch that he had subsequently donated to Goodwill. He also told the Star-Telegram that Toki was at home and safe, this time in a habitat designed to be much more resistant to escape.