Scare for senior citizen

Huge snake hanging in the garden shed in Steyr

The Aesculapian snake was released back into the wild.

(Bild: Esterbauer)

Margarete W. (70) got a huge fright when she opened the door to her garden shed in Steyr on Friday. Above the front door, a snake of an impressive size was hanging in the beams. The reptile had wrapped itself around a beam - and didn't want to leave.

After the unusual discovery, the pensioner quickly closed the door again and hoped that the unwelcome visitor would leave the garden shed overnight. Unfortunately, this wish did not come true. On Saturday, the creepy-crawly was still making itself at home in the hut.

"Magnificent, well-fed Aesculapian snake"
W. sought help from snake expert Hans Esterbauer, who was on site just 20 minutes later. "I saw that it was a magnificent Aesculapian snake, but it had tied itself around a beam in such a way that I couldn't use a snake hook," explained the expert.

"It was a very well-fed female with an impressive length of 1.65 meters."

Schlangenexperte Hans Esterbauer

 To avoid injuring the reptile, he had to carefully remove it from the beam. "It was a very well-fed female with an impressive length of 1.65 meters," says Esterbauer, for whom it was the largest Aesculapian snake he had caught in the past two years. The snake was then released in a nature reserve.