TOOELE -- Was it a prank, something malicious -- or neither? A Tooele County woman is asking those questions after someone threw snakes on her property.
It happened Monday afternoon at 8201 Mountain View Road in Lake Point.
A van pulled up to Dawn Anderson's home. At first she thought it was her sister, maybe a friend visiting. Instead, two men she didn't know tossed two 3-foot long snakes onto her yard.
"I saw a gentleman with this guy here (dead snake) and another snake that was wrapped around his arms that was obviously alive and I saw them toss ‘em out and they took off," Anderson said. "I wanted to find out who it was and get the sheriff on him honestly."
However, since Tooele County Animal Control doesn't deal with snakes, Anderson called reptile rescuer Jim Dix.
"She thought they were two exotic red tail boas released and we were really concerned about that because of the temperatures," Dix, founder of Reptile Rescue Services, said.
Actually, they were gopher snakes, which are native to Utah.
One of them was dead and the other was still slithering on Anderson's property.
Dix couldn't find it but said it's harmless.
"Remember any snake that has a pencil pointed tail like that you can write with, these are harmless, non-venomous," Dix said.
Still, it wasn't exactly the visitors Dawn Anderson was expecting.
"We don't understand why someone somebody would pull in her driveway, get out, I guess they put gloves on and threw the two snakes out on the ground and drove away, it's kind of a weird thing," Dix said.
"I was a little upset by it because any animal needs to be treated with respect regardless of what they are, that's what I believe," Anderson said.
