College authorities confiscated our beloved pet snakes
RIP Turbo, Churchill and Leo
It turned out our Dean wasn’t too impressed by what my friends and I thought to be some brilliant purchases at Slither and Swim last semester.
What started out as a quick trip to the pet shop to pick up a couple of goldfish became something much more adventurous when we spied these small, slithery reptiles curled up in their tanks.
We’re not huge fans of snakes but after a couple of minutes of rash thinking and quick discussion, we were the proud new owners of three corn snakes “Turbo, Churchill and Leo”.
The snakes were kept in a large tank above one of our closets, complete with bedding and plenty of space for them to hide in.
They had many interested visitors and a few others who were slightly more anxious about their presence.
Unfortunately, word got out about our limbless friends, and one anonymous tip off later we found ourselves summoned to the Dean’s office to face the consequences of harboring such obviously dangerous creatures in our suite.
Fortunately, the incident didn’t warrant further attention from the Executive Committee and we were asked simply to express our heartfelt apologies to all affected parties.
We sent in a sincere letter of apology, which read: “I write to inform you that the animals that were inhabiting the ground floor have now been removed as we became aware that they were causing distress and breaking the undergraduate regulations (Article B Part 4 Conduct in the dormitories).
“In the future I will endeavour to abide by these regulations and would encourage others to do the same.
“I would like to apologise for any distress that may have been caused, this was certainly not the intention. Looking back it was selfish of me to think that everyone would embrace the new pets as openly as I did, I hope that everyone is holding up ok emotionally and physically after, what I understand for some, has been a horrific ordeal.”
Alternative accommodation was found for the snakes off-campus where they met their tragic death a couple of weeks later.
We can only imagine it was the distress of being from their doting carers that was the cause.