Archives of The Cold Blooded News

The Newsletter of the Colorado Herpetological Society

Volume 32, Number 1;   January, 2005

Python hitches ride to New Jersey

CLIFTON, N.J. -The story of Paco the Python is a serpentine tale of a pet snake missing in Jefferson City [Missouri] for more than a month.

Eventually, Paco turned up 1,000 miles away, accidentally shipped to New Jersey in a box with a DVD player being sent for repairs.

The tale has a happy ending. Paco has been feasting on rats in a cage at a pet store in Clifton and will be shipped back home.

Paco's journey started last month when Sheila Himmerick couldn't get a new DVD player to work. The manufacturer, Samsung, told her to ship it to its return center in Secaucus, N.J.

Himmerick packed up the player but left the box unsealed. After a shipping label arrived, off went the DVD player on Nov. 22 by ground delivery.

Meanwhile, Paco, a 3-foot-long, 4-pound ball python, had been out of sight for a month, having slithered off somewhere during one of his furloughs from his cage. What must have happened, Himmerick and authorities eventually concluded, was that Paco slithered into the unsealed box and hid beneath foam peanuts.

At the end of the month, Himmerick got a call from Samsung's New Jersey repair shop, CVE Inc., where the snake was found in the DVD box.

Secaucus Town Animal Warden Kevin Kessler, who was called to CVE to handle the python, said Paco was a bit listless but unharmed.