Snake Eyed

This might not be a city of mean streets, but watch those backyards.

In one of them, a mere slither from downtown, firefighters Monday trapped a 5 1/2-foot boa constrictor. Owner and last meal unknown.

“It was pretty fat,” said neighbor Mike Ostrow, a retired engineer who gazed down on the capture from his hillside apartment. “It was a beauty.”

A gardener at Ostrow’s complex excitedly told him about the snake in the grass behind a Poli Street home. From his balcony, Ostrow could see it--stretched out, poking at a wooden gate, seeking a way out or maybe a little something to squeeze.

Ostrow called 911.

Within minutes, firefighters descended on the reptile. They carried a long pole with a rope but didn’t have to use it.

“One of them just picked it up by the head, like, ‘Hmm, interesting, isn’t it,’ ” Ostrow said.

Nobody was at the Poli Street home at the time.

A short while later, Charles Gilman, a tenant in a basement apartment there, said he knew of no tropical tree snakes residing in the house.

Seeking the boa’s home, firefighters knocked on a few nearby doors but found no takers.

It wasn’t that strange a story to Ventura County’s animal control director, Kathy Jenks, who said the county shelter in Camarillo took in two boas just last week. One was brought in by owners who no longer wanted it. The other was either dumped or had escaped.

“We don’t keep a separate stat on boas, but we’ve always got some snakes around here,” Jenks said. “It’s usually boas, because that’s what people keep as pets.”

The boas, which can grow as long as 12 feet, feed on live mice and rats--a feast that parents of eager young herpetologists soon tire of providing.

“The real big ones have to be fed rabbits,” Jenks said. “It’s kind of gross when you think about it.”

Even so, boas generally don’t pose much of a threat--especially when cold temperatures dull their appetite for small, furry, warm-blooded animals, said Joe Hoegeman, the zookeeper in charge of reptiles at the Santa Barbara Zoo.

“They’re typically shy,” he said. “They like to be hidden. Faced with an unusual situation, they’ll go in the other direction. Chances are this one was just trying to find a warm place to hide.”

Boas bite, but they kill by twisting around and suffocating their prey. “A 6-foot boa could hardly eat a newborn baby,” Hoegeman said. “The biggest thing they could eat is maybe a small rabbit.”

Like other snakes at the shelter, the serpent of Poli Street will be held at least 10 days. If no owner steps forward, it will be turned over to a local snake “rescue” group.