30 pythons on the loose in Sibu streets - Malay Press Item

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: THE STAR (Petaling Jaya, Malaysia) 18 January 00 30 pythons on the loose in Sibu streets (Jack Wong) : Kuching: Imagine some 30 pythons lurking in your neighbourhood. This scary situation is what residents living in Sibu's Jalan Tun Haji Openg and its vicinity face. : The pythons, the longest measuring 4.5m, have escaped from "snake king" Lim Tien Soon's mini zoo. : Lim, who has caught thousands of snakes in his 21-year career, was shocked to find the pythons missing from a large cage on Sunday morning. : The creatures are believed to have slipped out of the rusty iron cage after making a hole in it. : But the biggest python stayed behind as it was too sleepy after being fed the previous night. : However, several king cobras kept in another cage were safe. : Lim said he had no hope of finding the pythons, adding that residents need not panic as the snakes were not poisonous. : He urged them to call him if they found any. : "There are still more than 10 pythons in the zoo which is visited by an average of 1,000 people every week," he said in an interview here yesterday. : He said he started catching snakes at the age of nine and had responded to calls from Sibu residents to catch snakes in all these years. : "I catch at least 200 snakes a year and some of them are poisonous." : The snakes he kept were mostly those he had helped catch, he said. : It costs him between RM800 and RM900 a week to feed the snakes. : Lim, who had learnt his snake-catching skills from his late father, said he had stopped giving public demonstration on snake catching as it was a "dirty job". :

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