Winnipeg resident finds python in Dumpster; police corral it with recycling bin

WINNIPEG – Winnipeg police faced a slithery situation when a citizen came across a live python in a Dumpster.

Police say the city resident was surprised to find the snake on Tuesday night in a garbage bin behind an apartment complex.

An officer used a small recycling box to contain the serpent until animal control workers arrived.

Leland Gordon of the city’s animal services department says the ball python was in good shape, but charges may be laid against whomever abandoned it.

The ball python is smaller than most pythons — a little more than one metre long — and its bite is not poisonous.

Winnipeg police dealt with a more dangerous reptile in 2008, when a man was bitten in the face by a poisonous gaboon viper that was on the loose.