Tampines family declines AVA offer to take snake to zoo
The New Paper 10 Jul 09;
THE 3m-long python which terrified a family in their Tampines flat is now back in the wild where it belongs.
After being caught on Monday, the reptile spent the night in an enclosed empty fish tank in the corridor outside the flat.
Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority (AVA) officers yesterday offered to take the snake to the zoo.
But Miss Charmaine Tan, 24, a part-time sales assistant, and her brother chose to release it into the wild instead.
At about 3pm, her boyfriend dropped by to pick up the tank and drove to a forested area in Mandai to release the snake.
Said Miss Tan: 'My brother and I feel responsible for the python, and since it's a wild animal, we thought that it shouldn't be held captive.'
The New Paper reported yesterday that the python had made its way into the Tans' 12th-floor flat in Tampines.
The family called a pest control company, but they ended up catching the python themselves after they couldn't agree on a price.
Miss Tan and her father, Christopher, 52, a housing agent, then put it into a pillowcase and secured it by tying a knot.
They placed the pillowcase into a 50cm-long fish tank that Miss Tan's boyfriend had brought.
Very strong
The family placed a metal sheet on top of the tank and weighed it down with bricks so the snake, which Mr Tan described as strong, could not escape.
Mr Tan covered the glass portion of the tank so that their neighbours would not be alarmed.
'We knew that the snake couldn't escape since it was tied up inside the pillow case and was in the glass tank,' said Miss Tan.
When her brother, full-time national serviceman Mark Tan, 20, returned home at about 7pm on Monday night, he called the Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Acres) to pick up the snake.
But he was told that Acres could not keep the snake.
'Instead, they told us to release it into a heavily forested area,' said Miss Tan.
She said that she knew of only two forests - in Mandai and MacRitchie. Since the Mandai forest is more isolated, Miss Tan and her brother decided to release the snake there.
An AVA spokesman said that it was not illegal to release the snake into the jungle.
Audrey Tan Ruiping, newsroom intern
