Her Story
Lady Snake came to us from an old friend, Ben Friedus. Ben was one of Wildworks’ first volunteers, coming to the center in the early 1990s when he was only nine years old. He was too young at the time to work with the larger animals, but he quickly found his niche. Ben was a reptile enthusiast who kept many snakes and lizards as pets at his parents’ home in Topanga. He began to bring them to our public wildlife presentations to help us teach people about these important but often feared and misunderstood animals.
Recently, Wildworks received a call from a mother whose son was turning eight. She was interested in having our animals at her son’s birthday party and said her son was especially fond of big snakes. Normally, we house only snakes that are native to California. These animals don’t grow to be very large, so we began to search for a larger, exotic variety of snake. Then out of the blue the phone rang and it was Ben. He had just graduated from high school and wanted to return to Wildworks as a volunteer. It turns out that Ben had a ball python named Lady that he could bring to our children’s show. She was a beautiful snake--very healthy, calm, and used to being handled; perfect for our wildlife outreach programs. Ben asked if we wanted to keep her on as a permanent snake ambassador and, of course, we said Yes! |
