Yikes! 10-Foot Snake Found In Northern Wisconsin

A Wisconsin woman and her dog got a wild surprise while on a walk recently.

While out on a walk near the small town of Lakewood in northern Oconto County in Northeastern Wisconsin, the woman's dog made a very unexpected find as it explored the ditch along the road down which they were walking.

As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports, the dog "sniffed out a 10½-foot snake" off the side of the road just northeast of Lakewood, about 60 miles northwest of Green Bay, on Tuesday, September 3.

If you're thinking to yourself, "A 10+ foot snake sounds a little big to be native to Wisconsin", you're absolutely correct. The snake that the woman's dog found was a red-tailed boa constrictor, which Wisconsin's Racine Zoo explains is native to the Sonoran desert in Mexico through Central America and outlying islands, to far northern Peru - and definitely not the Badger State.

The snakes, which generally grow to somewhere between 6 and 10 feet long, can live up to 20 years in the wild, and up to 40 years under the care of humans.

Now, the good news is that these types of snakes are not poisonous and they rarely attack people. According to the website Reptiles of Ecuador, they wrap their body around their prey, "constricting" the flow of blood until it suffocates. This means that thankfully the woman and her dog were in no immediate danger.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel shared that while the snake was "very healthy, but somewhat dormant" due to it not being used to the colder outdoor Wisconsin temperatures. The paper reports that snakes like these need temperatures warmer than 70 degrees and they cannot handle Wisconsin winters.

Here is an image of the snake that was captured.

Northern Oconto County Animal Control

Someone from the Northern Oconto County Animal Control was part of the effort to capture the 50-pound snake, which is now trying to find its home. Being it is clearly not a wild snake due to it being out of its normal environment, the suspicion is that it is an escaped pet.

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The Northern Oconto County Animal Control is asking for help, looking for information about who its owner could be. While they say many people have offered to take the snake as a foster pet, they just want information about the possible owner. If you know anything about who it could belong to, you're asked to call the Northern Oconto County Animal Control office at 715-850-2299.