PARK SLOPE — A pet snake that went missing from a Park Slope brownstone eight months ago was reunited with its owners after a terrified neighbor discovered the roving reptile in her house and called 911.
The 3-foot corn snake, named Flame, slithered out of its home on Fifth Street between Sixth and Seventh avenues in June, police from the 78th Precinct said on Twitter.
Last Friday night, Flame resurfaced up the block, when Minerva Fernandez found the adventurous creature stretched out on the stairs leading to her second-floor apartment. She screamed, then called 911.
"I go, 'What is that? Is that a fake thing or is that real?'" recalled Fernandez of the moment she found the snake. "I'm so terrified of snakes."
Fernandez has a lifelong fear of snakes and even turns off the TV when a snake appears on screen. She hid in her apartment, where she lives with a pet bird and a turtle, while she waited for the police to show up. Meanwhile, a neighbor used a mop handle to keep the snake corralled in a corner of the staircase.
Officers from the 78th Precinct, who recently rescued dozens of bunnies left out in the cold, responded to the report of a "dangerous animal," an NYPD spokesman said. They eventually took the reptile into police custody in an empty bucket of ice melt, Fernandez said. The snake spent the night bunked in a "garbage receptacle" at the 78th Precinct station house on Sixth Avenue and Bergen Street, an NYPD spokesman said.
Officers didn't consult any experts in snake care, but the precinct's commanding officer, Capt. Frank DiGiacomo, took a personal interest in the case because he had owned a pet snake that went missing and was never found years ago, an NYPD spokesman said.
At 11 p.m. Friday, the precinct tweeted a photo of DiGiacomo holding the snake, explaining that police had recovered the animal on Fifth Street and asking the owner to contact the precinct. Meanwhile, officers put up posters on the block to notify neighbors about the found pet.
On Saturday morning, the snake's owners showed up at the precinct with photos to prove that they were Flame's caretakers, police said. The family, who declined to be interviewed, lives just a few houses away from Fernandez.
Snake expert Jose Rodriguez, education coordinator at Fauna NYC pet store, said Flame probably went out exploring one day and found a new spot to call home, perhaps near a nice warm radiator.
“They’re fairly intelligent reptiles,” Rodriguez said. “They’re very active. When you enclose them in a small tank, they really have nothing to do but look for ways to get out.”
Corn snakes prefer to be about 70 degrees, but have few other needs — they can go for months without eating because of their extremely slow metabolism, Rodriguez said. A pet snake would have no problem feeding itself while it was loose on the streets of Park Slope, and probably feasted on mice or other small animals, Rodriguez said.
The nonvenomous snakes are known for their calm demeanor and are popular as pets. It's common for corn snakes to slither off on adventures, Rodriguez said.
“They can snake their way down through plumbing and wind up in somebody else's apartment or in the wild after going through your toilet,” Rodriguez said. “Snakes were here way before we were. They’re totally fine on their own.”
