{"id":920342,"date":"2022-01-28T15:23:13","date_gmt":"2022-01-28T15:23:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/news\/2022\/01\/28\/snake-expert-appeals-to-phoenix-community-not-to-panic-as-search-continues-for-yellow-anaconda-that-escaped\/"},"modified":"2022-01-28T15:23:13","modified_gmt":"2022-01-28T15:23:13","slug":"snake-expert-appeals-to-phoenix-community-not-to-panic-as-search-continues-for-yellow-anaconda-that-escaped","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/01\/28\/snake-expert-appeals-to-phoenix-community-not-to-panic-as-search-continues-for-yellow-anaconda-that-escaped\/","title":{"rendered":"Snake expert appeals to Phoenix community not to panic as search continues for yellow anaconda that escaped"},"content":{"rendered":"

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DURBAN \u2013 Local snake rescuer Nick Evans and Reaction Unit South Africa (Rusa) have appealed to the Phoenix community not to panic after a two-metre long yellow pet anaconda escaped from an enclosure on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The non-venomous anaconda escaped from a temporary enclosure at a premises in Troy Street.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This comes after <\/em> reported that some residents were concerned for the safety of their young children, while others called for authorities to investigate the legalities of owning this type of snake.<\/p>\n

Speaking to The Mercury<\/em> yesterday, Evans confirmed that the snake was a yellow anaconda and described it as \u201cnot very big\u201d compared to other anacondas around the world.<\/p>\n

Evans said while yellow anacondas were quite common in the pet trade, they weren\u2019t in high demand. \u201cThey are not on the invasive species list and are therefore legal,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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MORE ON THIS<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
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He further described the yellow anaconda as an \u201cunpopular\u201d snake which has an odour. \u201cThese snakes are around but people often struggle to give them away,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Evans said he would be surprised if the anaconda were to take on a dog or cat. \u201cMaybe a kitten I guess, or a tiny dog. More like rats as they do favour being in water,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He assured the public that the anaconda would not be hunting children. \u201cI think there’s a lot of unnecessary panic. It’s of course not ideal to have a large snake that doesn’t belong here, slithering around,\u201d he said<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Evans said it was understandable that people would be afraid if they came across a snake like this as they \u201cget freaked out when they see a tiny snake\u201d.<\/p>\n

Rusa spokesperson Prem Balram said the snake had not yet been recovered as of 11am yesterday.<\/p>\n

Balram said the Rusa operations centre was inundated with calls from the public with concerns that they might encounter the snake and that it might harm them. \u201cThe public shouldn\u2019t panic,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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He urged people to call Rusa if they see the snake and a professional snake catcher would be called to assist.<\/p>\n

A 2-metre pet yellow anaconda escaped from its temporary enclosure in Phoenix on Wednesday. Picture: Reaction Unit South Africa<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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A 2 metre pet yellow anaconda escaped from its temporary enclosure in Phoenix on Wednesday. Picture: Reaction Unit South Africa.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
A 2 metre pet yellow anaconda escaped from its temporary enclosure in Phoenix on Wednesday. Picture: Reaction Unit South Africa.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

THE MERCURY<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DURBAN \u2013 Local snake rescuer Nick Evans and Reaction Unit South Africa (Rusa) have appealed to the Phoenix community not to panic after a two-metre long yellow pet anaconda escaped from an enclosure on Wednesday. The non-venomous anaconda escaped from a temporary enclosure at a premises in Troy Street. This comes after reported that some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-920342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-headlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=920342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920342\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=920342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=920342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=920342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}