Update: It turns out that the python didn’t escape from the exotic animal store below an apartment where two young brothers lay sleeping, but from a terrarium in the apartment where the pet store owner lived. 

[Warning: Sad photo in following link] According to the New York Daily News — which shows a photo of the two youngsters happy and smiling as they clean a tank in the pet store — the snake had a habit of getting out. It apparently escaped its enclosure and tried to enter the ventilation duct, but instead fell from the ceiling above where the boys were sleeping. The fright of the fall might’ve caused it to kill the boys, said one expert, who may’ve also attracted the snake by the smells of other animals they had on them.

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This is the kind of story that sounds too tragically unreal to be true, but unfortunately, it is: Two young boys having a sleepover in an apartment upstairs from an exotic animal pet store in Canada are thought to have been killed by a python that escaped from the store. It apparently slithered through ventilation ducts in the night and reportedly killed the boys in their sleep.

According to The Globe and Mail, the boys were five and seven and are possibly brothers. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have the snake in question in possession while the investigation goes on.

There haven’t been any charges made yet, but when something like this happens, people are likely to wonder what kind of animals should be allowed for sale.

Opponents of selling exotic animals say the regulations governing the sale of these animals and how to deal with them aren’t adequate. After all, if a certain kind of python can kill a human, is it really any more suitable as a pet than a tiger?

It happened before in 1992, when a man was killed by his pet python, says a spokeswoman for the World Society for the Protection of Animals in Canada.

“They don’t make good pets, period. They should be banned,” she said of the snakes, which can be anywhere from 19 to 22 feet in length and weigh up to 200 pounds. “I don’t think any province really has a good system in place to prevent people from owning these animals. You usually don’t have to show that you have any knowledge to care for them properly.”

*Appreciate the tip, Karen.

Python kills two boys in their sleep at New Brunswick sleepover [The Globe and Mail]

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