CHARLOTTE – Nearly seven years ago, a gentleman was waiting for the newest addition to his snake collection to be delivered. While it was delivered, it never made it into his home. A package was delivered to his porch, but unfortunately, it was stolen right from his door before he could retrieve it. The snake was very rare, and he knew who stole the package, and that they didn’t understand what they had just taken. 

Fast forward to the evening of September 12, 2022.  Ronald Prather, Homeland Wildlife Removal, LLC, got a call from a homeowner that they had found a snake in their garage, inside a box! Ronald began to ask the standard questions about markings and details that give him the information he is able to use to identify the type of snake that it is, especially to better understand if the snake is venomous. As the homeowners started to describe the snake, he could hardly believe what he was hearing. The snake sounded like something he had never had the chance to see in person, so he asked, “Can you send me a picture?” When he received the picture on his phone, he could hardly believe his eyes: not only was the snake super rare, it was not even a snake that is native to this area. It was a Cinnamon Pied Ball Python. So many questions were running through his head, but he knew the first step was to go and remove the snake and relieve the anxiety for the homeowners. 

Ronald is no stranger to removing animals and wildlife. He is the owner of Homeland Wildlife Removal, which is a professional animal exclusion and wildlife removal company. With over 16 years of experience removing and excluding wildlife, he is a licensed and certified expert who can handle any removal job, but this job was different than any other experience that he had ever had. He wondered to himself: where did this snake come from? How did it get in this garage? Always serving the community to the best of his ability, Ronald knew that he had to try and get the pictures out to the community. Once he arrived at the homeowner’s residence and he inspected the snake, he knew that this snake was well taken care of and had to be someone’s pet; he just didn’t know who the owner was. Talking with the homeowner, they came up with a plan to post pictures to local social media outlets and try to reach out to the community, as this snake had to belong to someone.

A few days went by, and no one was claiming the snake, which seemed so odd because it was rare snake and very well taken care of. The night of September 14, Ronald got the call that he had been waiting for. It was a gentleman that said, “I think the snake you found is mine.” As Ronald and the gentlemen talked more, he came to learn about the story. After seven years, what are the chances that this snake would “show” back up and be reused locally? He asked the gentleman to send him some pictures and information to confirm that the snake was his. Once confirmed, they met and reunited the snake with its original owner. “As a business owner, I strive for moments like this,” said Ronald in a recent interview. The experience from beginning to end is why he does the job he does serving the community, and when a story like this comes along it makes it all worth the “wild.”

More pictures of wildlife removal can be found at https://www.instagram.com/ronaldprather3/. In all his years of experience, there is no removal job that he hasn’t seen. It is an interesting job that serves the community well.