Another bizarre Oz story

A silly story for the end of the week.

We regularly get bizarre stories coming out of Australia and here's a new one that particularly fascinated me.

It comes from the Western Australia Department of Environment & Conservation, who were caring for a carpet python. That's one of these:


Photo: goldensnakes.com

They found it when they were out in the bush on routine woylie monitoring operations south-east of Perth.

A 'woylie' you ask?

A woylie is a small nocturnal marsupial which was reclassified as endangered after populations declined by 90 per cent from 2001.

That's one of these:


Photo: Sabrina Trocini

A released woylie with a radio tracking collar had been swallowed by the 2 metre long python, which obviously cared little that it was eating an endangered animal for lunch.

The officers tracked the radio collar to inside the python and took it back to be cared for because it would need to help to regurgitate the collar.

But then.

A thief broke into the centre and stole the python.

An appeal for its return had no effect, so the big guns were called in.

"The investigating team decided to use a plane to track the snake after an appeal for the thieves to return the python did not have the desired effect and ground-tracking efforts were unsuccessful.

After considerable assistance from the Australian Government Department of Defence and Air Services Australia to secure the required military and civil aviation clearances, the plane was flown to Perth from Manjimup (300 kilometres from Perth, the state capital) and started the search on Thursday afternoon and soon picked up a signal.

"They got us within 60m - we were able to pinpoint a Heathridge house with hand-held tracking devices and told the police who went in to recover the snake."

Apparently the residents were rather shocked when the WA police turned up.

I wonder what the total cost was to rescue the python?



The WA DE&C website story is here.