Python wins battle against villagers

Residents of Rongai as they protested after they were stopped from Killing the the captured Python on March 21,2012 along River okekasasi in Rongai . The Python was rescued and taken to Nairobi National Museum. Photo/WILLIAM OERI

It was a battle between angry villagers and a python on Wednesday, and in the end the reptile won, escaping with its life and its prey — a dog tucked somewhere in the length of its body.

Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) and Kenya National Museum officials rescued the python after a six-hour wait by villagers who vowed to revenge after their dog was swallowed.

The reptile was camouflaged in a thicket on the drying river bank of Okekasi B River, which runs besides the African Nazarene University in Ongata Rongai.

Unfortunately for it, however, a villager who had gone to the bush to answer to a call of nature came face to face with it and raised an alarm.

Guarding python

“We have been guarding the python to prevent angry inhabitants from killing it,” Mr John Plimo, a KWS Nairobi National Park Rhino Officer, told the Nation before the snake was taken away to a sanctuary.

Residents complained the zeal by KWS to conserve snakes was pushing human beings staying nearby into a dangerous position.

Area resident Jackson Salaa who was armed with an arrow led villages who wanted to kill the python on their mission.

“They have now eaten two dogs and six goats. I only need a few minutes, and I will cut its head. This thing is so harmful to our animals and useless to our lives,” complained Mr Salaa, 57, who identified himself as a Maasai Moran.

While pythons don’t make a habit of attacking people, 12-years-old Stanley Wekesa explained how a python attacked him only a few days ago.

“I was playing by the river when the snake attacked me, biting my forehead before I escaped to safety,” the pupil at El-Shaddai Primary School in Ongata Rongai said of his troubles that happened last week on Tuesday.

A healing wound on his forehead is a reminder of how close he was to being swallowed by the python.

Efforts by Mr Plimo to explain the importance of conserving the python fell on deaf ears, which is why his team maintained a perimeter around the snake.

Pythons are usually appear shy, but launch surprise attacks against their prey, recoil around the body and kill — within minutes — by suffocating or smashing the animals ribs with their powerful body.

Their preferred prey include goats, sheep, dogs, rabbits, antelopes and monkeys. “They also eat human beings,” Mr Plimo explained.

After swallowing a prey, pythons stays for sometime at the spot then migrates into a cave or other hidden place where it can hibernate for up to about six months. They can eat only twice or three times in a year.

A full-grown python can measure up to 18 feet and weigh 100 kilogrammes.

“This particular one we just captured is smaller as it measures about 12 feet (3.5 metres),” animal health specialist Daniel Mutui, who led the capture of the snake explained.

Pythons have no poison, but have strong hook like teeth used for catching prey. Mr Mutui held the snake by its head, immobilising it, as 10 or so men assisted in clearing the bush before lifting the snake safely into a sack.

Kenya has 126 species of snakes, among them, python, moomslang, puff adder, cobra and the mamba. Tales of python are often as strange as they are comical.

In June 2009, residents of Kang’elai Division in West Pokot District in Northern Kenya said that they were living in fear following an unusual invasion of pythons that had so far killed hundreds of goats and sheep.

In April 2009, a man bit a python that had coiled around him and hauled him up a tree during a fierce three-hour struggle.

In 2003, a 16-foot- python, which was originally revered by the inhabitants of the village of Wasare, in western Kenya, for its fortune-bringing powers, proved to be less of a blessing after it began to hatch dozens of eggs.

In the Rongai case on Wednesday, a member of the crowd stole a bag for safely carrying snakes, forcing wildlife officials to borrow another sack from the villagers.