Ducks had been disappearing one after another from a farm, and the farmer was suspicious, but could not find out who was taking them. When the "thief" was finally caught, the farmer was frightened by what he saw: a huge python several metres long had been eating the ducks on its own.

The incident happened recently in Zhangzhou city in China's Fujian province. A local private rescue team later took the python away and released it in a distant hilly area.

A local farmer who saw the python eating ducks was scared and called a local resident, Chen. When Chen arrived, the python had already swallowed several ducks. He said the snake's belly was abnormally swollen and he thought it could weigh more than 50 kg.

Seeing such a large python, Chen contacted the local Liming rescue team. Team member Ye, who has been doing rescue work for more than a year, said he had never seen such a big python. Shu, head of the rescue centre, was at the scene and filmed the whole operation.

The video shows the python, several metres long, with quite sharp teeth. Even after the rescuers put it in a sack, the snake kept trying to attack them. Ye said a python this size could swallow a sizeable sheep if it wanted to.

During the rescue the python brought up several ducks; rescuers said it disgorged three, whose bodies had begun to decompose.

The python then escaped for a while. The rescuers followed and found it in a nearby bamboo grove, where they brought it under control. They decided to take it far from people and released it in a remote hilly area.

The report drew on Global News.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.