Bucks County is finally safe from Sid the Python

Plumstead Township Police Chief Duane Hasenauer didn't think danger when he saw Sid, the 13-foot-long Burmese python, slither across a field of waist-high grass after being on the loose for six weeks.

In this quiet, Bucks County community, Hasenauer just bent over and grabbed the 100-pound reptile with his bare hands on Tuesday night.

"I didn't think anything of it," Hasenauer said yesterday. "I was tired of getting all the calls from people worried about it."

Hasenauer said he talked to more neighbors concerned about Missing Sid than about big bears who are sometimes on the prowl in the township in the spring. "Some parents were so scared of the snake, they wouldn't let their children out to play," he said.

Until her escape Aug. 12, Sid lived with her owner, Thomas Esbensen, in a 8-by-10-foot cage in a house on Saw Mill Road.

Somehow, the 13-year-old snake pushed her way through the glass doors of the cage, slid over to an open back door and found freedom.

Esbensen was beside himself, particularly since he'd taken care of the reptile since she was an 18-inch baby. "It's almost like losing a girlfriend," he reportedly said. "I just don't want to see her run over."

In a flier he distributed looking for her, he wrote: "She is a tree climber so look up more than on the ground. It's slow on land and will not seek you out... . It's friendly but you have to not provoke it."

Before she slithered away, Sid was recently fed a large rat, so she probably wasn't hungry for at least two weeks.

Sid seemed to be doing just fine Tuesday night when two New Britain men driving on Saw Mill Road saw her sliding into a field near the Route 611 bypass.

They called police and Hasenauer showed up and found runaway Sid in tall grass. "It was a tug of war," Hasenauer said. "She did not want to be caught. She was pulling back and hissing."

Hasenauer, with the help of Doylestown Township Officer Dorothy Kreuter, attempted to trap the snake in dog poles - sticks with nooses on the end used to catch strays.

They got one pole around Sid's middle, but then Sid reached back and bit Kreuter.

"It's not a big deal," Kreuter said yesterday. "I don't know why the media is making such a fuss."

Hasenauer was able to get the other pole wrapped around Sid's neck and lifted her into his trunk."I'm glad we caught it so people can feel safe again," Hasenauer said.

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Originally Posted by Clay Davenport

In this quiet, Bucks County community, Hasenauer just bent over and grabbed the 100-pound reptile with his bare hands on Tuesday night.

Finally, an official with a brain!

Originally Posted by Clay Davenport

Before she slithered away, Sid was recently fed a large rat, so she probably wasn't hungry for at least two weeks.

Is this guy for real? I've seen some big rats but this snake is supposed to be 13' long and 100 pounds. A rat every two weeks is ridiculous.

Originally Posted by Karen Hulvey

Finally, an official with a brain!

I was impressed by this myself. Some officials would have just shot it. At the least, a recapture of a large snake is usually depicted as a dramatic affair in which a number of police officers and animal control personnel surround the animal and with much effort, not to mention extreme personal risk, finally manage to "subdue" the vicious serpent.

I was pretty impressed by that too. Usually the "authorities" simply kill the animal.

Last week a guy called the reptile shop I work at and asked if I could ID a snake he brought in. He said it's the biggest snake he's ever seen and he even called the police about it. I said I would ID it for him. We get tons of calls like this all summer.

He brings the snake and it's in a paper grocery sack. He hands the sack to me and I almost dropped it because it was so heavy. I though it was a native species and therefore wouldn't be very heavy as no snake native to Missouri would weigh around 15-20 pounds which is what this sack weighed. I opened the sac and saw a Col. redtail boa, about 6-7' long, with it's head blown almost completely off. He said the policeman shot it because it was hissing and striking at them and it was probably poisonous.

That just made me sick. I told him that if he should ever find another snake that he's scared of to call me and I will remove it for him.

I wonder if someone's pet got loose or if someone intentionally released it?

Yes.I too found the rat every couple of weeks to be a stretch, to say the least, for a 100 lb snake....... I feed my RTBs a large rat every week, and they are only about 10-12 lbs...... Hmmmm?

OMG! 13' and 100lbs? idk about that.... more like 45-60 pounds at the most, and that would still be eating a rabbit every week.

i would have probably picked it up too, just with some other smart people around. and put it in a rubber made tub.... and why the hell would they use dog sticks? thats just outright crule!

karen, ive had that same thing happen to me. a friend of mine asked me to identify a snake him and his dad had caught (he said it looked like a "rattler") and it turned out to simple be a gourgous gopher snake that was missing a head thanks to his dad..
and about a week later i was at his house and he stepped right over a 6' gopher and didnt even see it but i did, and simply picked it up and moved it out into the hills to be free, but that was one pissed off snake i got bit 5 times so it went into a bag

It is possible the owner downplayed the size of the food items as not to alarm neighbors anymore than necessary. Just so this wouldnt happen.

Originally Posted by Bill & Amy

It is possible the owner downplayed the size of the food items as not to alarm neighbors anymore than necessary. Just so this wouldnt happen.

Which would be a very smart thing to do. No need to panic the neighbors into thinking that Fido and Fluffy are in danger.

I don't know if the owner was that smart. Apparently, when interviewed after the snake was found, decided to cry and carry on about how this snake was his child, etc. on camera. He came across as a total nut to virtually everyone watching it.

Much like Foxworthy's comment that the only rednecks interviewed after a tornado are the ones walking through chest high water carrying an umbrella.... only the best and brightest herpers seem to make it to prime time.