A Winnipeg man was in for a slithery shock over the weekend when he discovered a useless snake in a field of strawberries at his native grocery retailer.
Ben Kahler stopped on the River East Plaza Safeway Saturday evening for his weekly grocery store and hit the produce part first.
At first he gawked on the worth of strawberries — which had been listed at $7.99 per container — however he was quickly shocked by one thing else when he inspected a carton of the Ocean Spray model berries.
BEN KAHLER / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
A Winnipeg man discovered a useless snake in a carton of strawberries at Safeway on Saturday.
Curled up within the plastic container amid the berries was what gave the impression to be a small snake.
“I turned it over and thought, ‘That’s a lot of leaves at the bottom of this one,’ and I realized pretty quickly those aren’t leaves,” Kahler (who works as a Free Press internet editor) mentioned Sunday.
“I was checking the strawberries to see if there were any mouldy ones, not for insects or snakes or anything.”
Realizing what it was, and suspecting it was no bizarre garter snake that’s widespread in Manitoba, Kahler confirmed the field to a “horrified” customer-service employee and left the reptile with them. The snake gave the impression to be useless within the container.
“Everybody’s heard horror stories of tarantulas in the bananas, so I always kind of just checked now as a matter of habit,” he mentioned. “The snake kind of threw me for a loop. That totally was something I’d never seen before.”
Analyzing images of the surprising discovery, snake knowledgeable Curtis Fraser recognized the snake as a fox snake, not a lot older than just a few months.
The non-venomous reptiles are native to the southern United States and northern Mexico. The pint of fruit was labelled as imported from Mexico, in keeping with Kahler.
Fraser mentioned the breed of snake is usually discovered within the pet commerce and pose no hazard to people, however to search out them hiding in produce is a rarity.
“I buy a lot of tropical plants from greenhouses and specialty-plant shops, and every once in a while there’s been a frog or a small lizard that gets carried in a shipment of plants accidentally. But snakes are particularly rare to find,” the snake educator mentioned.
The serpents can develop to as much as 1-1/2 metres in size and their weight loss plan consists primarily of rodents, although additionally they eat eggs and small birds.
So, how may this have occurred?
“I honestly just think that he slithered up onto the (fruit) pallet in Mexico when they were loading and he got scared and stayed there,” Fraser mentioned, including the snake most like seemingly froze to dying throughout its travels. Snakes of that species will discover hibernaculum (underground chambers to make use of as refuges) beneath the equatorial frost line throughout the winter months.
Kahler didn’t examine the snake after eyeing it, which Fraser mentioned was the correct transfer on his half.
“It’s not always a harmless fox snake.”
Karen White-Boswell, director of communications for Safeway Canada guardian firm Sobeys, mentioned the discovering is being investigated with the fruit provider.
There has been no recall on the cargo, White-Boswell mentioned in an electronic mail.
While the incident didn’t trouble Kahler sufficient to cease his store, nor does he have a horrible concern of snakes, he’s not planning to purchase strawberries once more any time quickly.
“I was kind of turned off from strawberries at that point,” he mentioned.
Nicole Buffie
Multimedia producer
Nicole Buffie is a multimedia producer who studies for the Free Press metropolis desk.
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