'Innocent' python killed
2005-02-07 16:40
Zenzele Kuhlase and Kulani Mavunda
Nelspruit - Villagers in Mpumalanga hunted down and killed a rock python suspected of eating a toddler who disappeared after playing with friends.
After killing the snake, the villagers found a goat in its belly and that the child had gone to sleep on her mother's bed.
The child's father, Ben Thobela, said no one had thought to look for two-year-old Busi in the house in Msogwaba tribal trust near Nelspruit.
"We were so shocked when some cattle herders said they'd seen a python that had eaten something large, that we assumed it had taken our child," he said.
Neighbours helped hunt down the snake, which was stoned and stabbed to death.
Police were called, but the snake was dead by the time they arrived, said inspector Isaac Mnisi of KaNyamazane police.
Against the law to kill them
Snake expert Donald Strydom warns it is against the law to kill rock pythons because they are a protected species.
"There are few of these snakes left and no one is allowed to kill them," he explained.
"Pythons also don't eat people. Nowhere in the world has a python eaten a person.
He said that, in terms of the law, people could be jailed for killing pythons.
Inspector Mnisi said it was unlikely police would follow the case because they felt the killing was justified.
"It happened in a residential area," he said.
A disappointed Strydom advised people who found snakes in or near their homes to call in snake experts to remove them.<
p>The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) can also be contacted.