Starving snake warms up to food

At Best Friends recently, roles were reversed for a king snake and a certain mouse. The previous keeper of the snake had put a live mouse in with the snake. Though the snake hadn’t eaten in weeks, the mouse ended up getting the best of the snake— he bit him!
Unable to get the snake to eat and worried he might starve to death, the person surrendered him to Wild Friends, the wildlife rehabilitation center at Best Friends. By the time Best Friends received him, he hadn’t eaten in about three months. Licensed wildlife rehabilitator Carmen Smith had the snake eating within a week. Turns out the snake hadn’t been kept at the proper temperature, so he had been too cold to eat.

“Temperature is critical for snakes,” Carmen says. “They can’t digest food if they’re not warm enough.”

Since the snake originally came from California, Wild Friends can’t legally release him in Utah. The Utah Division of Wildlife has therefore taken the snake and will use him in their educational outreach program, and educators will most certainly point out the correlation between temperature and digestion in snakes.

Story by Ted Brewer
Photo by Molly Wald