Results tagged “snakes”

Today on Staten Island, a couple had to call the authorities about a python that found its way onto their property. No one's quite sure where the 10-foot long yellow Albino python came from when it was spotted on the Great Kills driveway, but it's suspected that someone nearby released their pet when the creature became beyond their control. A spokesman for Animal Care and Control told the SI Advance, "[People] get them when they're very young, when they're a foot or two long. They outgrow their enclosure and they get to be too much to handle." Last year alone, the agency brought in 91 snakes—pythons being one of the classifications of snakes that are banned as pets. (In Florida just today, a pet python strangled a two-year-old girl to death.) The Staten Island snake has been put on a a wildlife rehabilitator in Brooklyn until it can be moved to a sanctuary outside the city. That sure beats the fate of one python in Brooklyn—he ended up being peed on!

Some Columbia University students are in mourning this week after cops nabbed one of the campus' more prominent dealers. Known to many there as simply "Bill," William Delp found himself in custody Monday when narcotics officers raided his West 107th Street apartment after the 49-year-old had attempted to sell drugs to undercover detectives. Delp, who describes himself on his MySpace page as "a composer, filmmaker, and political and social activist" and posts photos of himself singing "vocal duos" with snakes, faces drug charges related to possession and sale of LSD, Ecstasy, and marijuana. Now, it's not exactly a bombshell story when an aging hippie gets busted for drugs, but what may be the only surprise in this case is that Delp's neighbors were actually surprised. Said neighbor Jonathan Perez to the NY Daily News: "I'm totally shocked...He was always a pretty cool guy. He'd always give the peace sign." Yeah, that probably should have been your clue right there.