Residents of a Yishun HDB block were surprised to see an unusual resident crawling across a pavilion roof on Saturday night.
A 2.5m-long female python was spotted around 7pm at the block on Yishun Ring Road and caught on camera by excited residents as the animal looked up and around for an escape route.
Pythons, which quietly keep the rat population down free of charge while we’re all asleep, pose no danger to people if left alone and will slither off if they encounter humans. But one Yishun resident decided that this snake had to be removed from the block because her mother would die instantly of shock if she saw the snake.
So the town council was called, who then called the police, who called animal welfare group ACRES to help retrieve the snake from the roof.
ACRES volunteers Gabriel Cai and Lee Anne, who more than a year ago scaled a similar height to reach a hawk that had been trapped in the netting of a golf driving range, climbed a 4m-tall ladder to reach the animal, which was hiding under the pavilion roof tiles.
The rescue operation took about five hours, finally ending at about 4am.
Fourteen roof tiles had to be removed to reach the elusive snake, which was trying to get to a nearby tree to evade the commotion below.
A drawstring bag was placed over the snake’s face to calm it down before it was carried down the ladder and into ACRES rescue van.
