Python on the loose in Navarino Wildlife Area

NAVARINO - Officials in the Navarino Wildlife Area say it's like finding a needle in a haystack.

A 10-foot-long python snake is on the loose in the Shawano County reserve that covers 15,000 acres.

The snake was spotted over Memorial Day weekend, and crews and volunteers have been searching for it ever since.

Cale Richter says his friend snapped a picture on Memorial Day, on his way home from work early in the morning.

"He just called me immediately and said, hey, you got to see this. Look what I saw crossing the road," said Richter, who posted the photograph on the Internet.

Crossing the road was a ten-foot python. Richter posted the picture, and the snake went viral.

"Got a lot of shares on Facebook, a lot of people are talking about it," said Richter.

People like Becky Krings. She lives next to the wildlife center. She says she's not keen about sharing her yard with such a snake.

"No, not such a big one. We have grass snakes, fox snakes, and to hear that there's a large one is a little unusual," said Becky Krings, a Navarino neighbor.

It's been three weeks since the snake was spotted at the Navarino Wildlife Area, and hasn't been seen since.

Navarino Nature Center director Tim Ewing says a snake group out of Madison searched the area over the weekend looking for the snake. Ewing says even though temperatures are soaring into the 80s, it may be still too cold for the python, and at this point it may be a search for a dead snake.

"Some are worried, some are not. Some just think it might have died off with the cold at night. I am optimistic it did," said Krings.

Questions remain as to how and why the snake got out there. People who live in the area say the Navarino is safe.

"From what I saw, there's no reason to be scared. Take precautions. Be scared enough into not coming to Navarino and enjoy what we have here? Definitely not," said Richter.