When the news broke that a 14-foot African Rock Python had killed two small boys in Campbellton, New Brunswick, reptile keepers were astonished—and some of them were suspicious. Many things didn’t make sense to us: how could the snake constrict two boys at once, they wondered, without them waking up? Why, after constricting them, did the snake release them?
As more news filtered out, it became clearer how it happened. The boys had been to a petting zoo the previous evening and presumably still smelled strongly of farm animal, which offered a plausible explanation to anyone who’s been chewed on by their pet snake because they had the smell of rodent (or fish, or earthworm) on their fingers. And the preliminary autopsy results indicated asphyxiation. The remaining mysteries do not strike me as impossible: the boys could have been sleeping very close together (they were described as inseparable); it can be awfully difficult to wake small children up; and snakes do release after constriction if they can’t swallow them—a 14-foot python can kill an adult but not swallow one.
Even so, some people still insist—usually in the comments of news articles and social media posts, look around and you’ll see it—that there’s something fishy about this: that the snake could not have been responsible. Without actually coming out and saying it, they’re essentially saying that the boys were murdered and the snake was planted to cover up the crime.
Truthers, in other words, have come to the reptile community.
Deniers of historical or scientific truth always have an agenda. 9/11 truthers believe the attack was staged so that the U.S. could go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Sandy Hook conspiracy theorists believe the massacre was a hoax or false flag operation to enable stricter gun laws. Climate change deniers are inevitably heavily invested in the oil and gas industry, creationists in fundamentalist Christianity, and so on.
Python truthers, as I will call those who believe the python was set up, are afraid of new restrictions on exotic pet ownership; it’s in their interest, in other words, to believe this was a coverup, and in their interest to see the python exonerated.
Now, the reptile community is rife with the Dunning-Kruger effect: everybody’s a goddamn expert. A couple of months keeping a species and suddenly they’re online telling everyone else how it’s done. Online reptile discusssions are invariably redolent of bullshit; everyone’s talking out their asses. It’s not much of a surprise that some hobbyists are armchair quarterbacking an ongoing criminal investigation based on received wisdom about a species most of them have never had direct experience with.
Animals are complicated, even those of very little brain. By my count, I have looked after 138 garter snakes, but the next one could still surprise me. Who on this planet has sufficient knowledge of African Rock Pythons to be able to predict exactly how every single one of them will react when put in the same room with two sleeping children who smell like goat?
Python truthers believe it’s more likely that two sleeping boys were murdered by human hands, with no apparent motive, and the snake planted to cover the murderer’s tracks than the snake getting out of its profoundly insecure cage and attacking what smelled like food.
It’s bullshit, and it’s offensive—and it’s putting reptile keepers’ reputations at risk. The last thing we need is to come across like a bunch of wild-eyed conspiracy theorists. I thought the problem was that we could end up sounding like the NRA. This is worse.