The sound from beneath the shed didn\u2019t seem real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A quiet New Jersey backyard, a woman watering flowers\u2026 and an 8-foot predator lying in the dark, its belly grotesquely swollen. When officers dragged the massive python into the light, everyone froze.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The X-ray would reveal the truth, and once they saw the shad\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Leslie and Ed Daley\u2019s peaceful Freehold home turned surreal the moment that thick, patterned body slid into view beneath their shed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What looked like a horror-movie prop was very real: an 8-foot Burmese python, far from its native Southeast Asia, coiled in the cool dirt with a shocking bulge in its midsection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Animal Control officers arrived with a contractor, prying up floorboards while carefully unwinding the powerful snake, determined not to injure it or themselves as they eased it out into the open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the Monmouth County SPCA, an X-ray finally answered the question everyone was afraid to ask. Inside the python\u2019s distended belly was a large opossum, swallowed whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cleaned up and placed in a secure tank, the snake was transferred to a licensed reptile expert while authorities searched for any legal owner. For rescuers, the case became a stark warning: exotic pets abandoned to the wild can devastate local animals, frighten families, and ultimately suffer themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The sound from beneath the shed didn\u2019t seem real. A quiet New Jersey backyard, a woman watering flowers\u2026 and an 8-foot predator lying in the dark, its belly grotesquely swollen. When officers dragged the massive python into the light, everyone froze. The X-ray would reveal the truth, and once they saw the shad\u2026 Leslie and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21719,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21717"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21720,"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21717\/revisions\/21720"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}