Massive python makes a late-night visit to playground in Agra

AGRA: An eight-foot-long Indian rock python was spotted in a playground near Central Hindi Institute’s residential hostel in Khandari, Agra, on Friday night.
Shocked to see the python in the field, the resident students immediately raised an alarm and contacted the Wildlife SOS.
A team of experts from the NGO was then dispatched to capture the reptile, which by then had moved towards the hostel gate. Although non-venomous, a python’s bite can be injurious, so the team carefully captured it.
The NGO team then transferred it into a specialised transport carrier and relocated it to a safer habitat in the wild, after keeping it under observation for a few hours.
Pritam Singh Bisht, a student of the Kendriya Hindi Sansthan who called the experts after spotting the reptile, said, “We often find snakes in this area, but this is the first time we’ve seen such a large python.”
Baiju Raj M V, Director Conservation Projects for Wildlife SOS, said, “We are glad that the Wildlife SOS hotline is successfully fulfilling its purpose of helping animals in distress.”
The Indian rock python can length out to as long as 20 ft. They are native to tropical and subtropical regions of the Indian subcontinent and southeast Asia.
The python is protected under the Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, and listed under Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES), an international organisation which regulates the trade of wildlife species.