Wildlife catcher is called to bag rat snake in home

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By Dan Scanlan, My Mandarin Sun

A Mandarin homeowner had a House of Slytherin Thursday, but it wasn't at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Instead, it was a home in the Wilderness subdivision off Marbon Road where wildlife specialist Chris Gangraw found, and captured, a 4-foot-long rat snake that had apparently been slithering in and out of the attic in search of rodent-under-roof snacks.

"There was a skin it had shed laying to the right. As I walked to the other side of the house, there were more skins and droppings from the snake," said Gangraw, a certified wildlife control removal specialist with ProQuest. "After moving some insulation and doing a quick inspection, I found the snake."

Gangraw said the homeowner, who did not want to be identified, called him Feb. 6 with a tale of a tail a neighbor had seen snaking its way up and through a wall soffit. The snake wrangler climbed into the attic and found the brown-and-tan reptile.

"The only reason you find snakes in an attic is if someone has a rodent problem," he said. "I am sure other homes have had snakes, but people don't really notice them because they don't make a lot of noise."

The snake did fight its capture, but was quite docile when posing for beauty shots later. Gangraw, who has wrangled animals as large as alligators, is a certified trapper and said he would release the snake into the wild later.