Earlier this month, team members at Pocono Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Center, a wildlife rescue service in Monroe County, Pennsylvania, answered the phone to heartbreaking news.
A Department of Natural Resources employee told them about a group
of snakes who’d accidentally gotten stuck on bits of adhesive tape affixed to a cardboard box. Could the animal experts save their lives?
Rescuers weren’t sure — but they knew they’d do everything they could.
As soon as the small ring-necked snakes arrived, team members began the tedious task of removing all five of them from the box.
“We worked slowly and carefully, using a safe oil-based method to loosen the adhesive and gently free their delicate little bodies from the tape, one tiny scale at a time,” the center wrote in a Facebook post.
Rescuers hoped they might get these snakes back where they belonged. According to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania website, ring-necked snakes are harmless to humans, and they benefit their environment by providing yard and garden pest control.
The next day, rescuers took the “little survivors” to Dublin Veterinary Hospital, where they received a full exam. Vets provided a special ointment to aid in scale repair.
Today, the snakes are still recovering at the rescue center, where they’ll remain until they’re healthy enough to be released back into the wild.
For Pocono Wildlife executive director Janine Tancredi, watching these snakes improve means the world.
“Cases like this remind me why I do what I do,” Tancredi told The Dodo. “Seeing an animal come in frightened, vulnerable and in a situation it could never escape on its own, and then knowing that our intervention may allow it to return to the wild is a feeling that is difficult to put into words. It brings a tremendous sense of gratitude and purpose.”
