A family were horrified when they found a snake midway through devouring a cat.
Beck White said she found the Olive python napping in front of her home in Katherine, in the Northern Territory, on Saturday.
‘By the huge bulge in his stomach you could tell he (the snake) was stuffed – I think he was taking a nap when I found him,’ she told the Sunshine Coast Daily.
A family were horrified when they found a snake midway through devouring a cat on their lawn
In a post on Facebook Ms White thanked David Reed from Reedy’s Reptiles for removing the snake.
‘It was quite distressing knowing that the big olive python had eaten a cat and it so easily could have been our much loved family pet,’ she said.
Mr Reed told the Daily Mail Australia he had been finding large pythons coming into the the area and attacking larger prey more regularly.
‘In terms of eating domestic pets I get a couple a year it’s not a common thing,’ he said.
‘But in the space of a three days I had one that had not eaten a dog but it had killed it, then I had another that had eaten a very small lamb and then this one.’
Ms White found the snake in her front garden and said the victim easily could have been one of her own pets
Mr Reed successfully captured the snake and released it back into bushland.
He said that the drought was bringing snakes closer to home in search of food.
‘Times are tough for wildlife so they are coming into the city areas more,’ he said.
Last month snake catcher Stuart McKenzie discovered another python on the Sunshine Coast that had devoured a pet cat.
‘As soon as I arrived I knew the food Item was too big to be a possum and I was 95 per cent sure it was a cat,’ he said.
‘I took the snake to the local vet and we scanned for a microchip and sure enough it was a family’s pet cat.’
Last month snake catcher Stuart McKenzie found a snake that had probably devoured a pet cat on the Sunshine Coast
source: dailymail.co.uk
