BATON ROUGE, La. — After days of freedom, Cara the missing mall python has been found.
Cara escaped from the Blue Zoo Aquarium inside the Mall of Louisiana Tuesday.
The 12-foot snake was found in a crawl space Thursday morning, WBRZ reported.
The snake was found was just in the nick of time.
The zoo’s CEO said that if they didn’t find Cara soon, they would start tearing down walls trying to locate the snake. His deadline was set for Wednesday evening.
“One of the big concerns is that she slipped up there in between a wall, and can’t come back out,” Wes Haws said, according to CNN. “We’re not going to treat this any differently than if it was a child missing. It’s super important to us that we keep up with the effort.”
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The snake was taken to the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine to make sure it wasn’t hurt while it was on its adventure.
Blue Zoo officials are now trying to figure out how Cara got out of the habitat, WBRZ reported. They’ll then make sure the snake can’t get out again.
Some believe that zoo staff watched Cara slither from its home and tried to find the snake on their own but when they couldn’t retrieve it, the staff then called for help a day after the snake escaped, WBRZ reported.
Zoo employees believe Cara got out of the enclosure around 2 a.m. Monday but animal control wasn’t called until Tuesday, WBRZ reported.
People who went to the zoo on Monday said on social media they wondered where the snake was, WVUE reported.