Some Ontario residents, it seems, have a love affair with deadly pythons. Just two weeks after an African rock python killed two boys in New Brunswick, 40 pythons were found in a Brantford motel on Thursday evening.

The 40 snakes were in five plastic storage bins at the Bell City Motel on Colborne Street. The police, upon finding the snakes, called on the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) to take custody of the pythons.

Brandon James, spokesman of the Brant County SPCA, said they found the snakes in overcrowded condition. The pythons were of various sizes, the longest of which was 1.3 metres long, while there were some that were less than one foot long and six unhatched eggs.

He said that the owners were likely keeping the pythons for sale because of the big market for mature ball snakes despite owning a python being illegal in the city.

The hotel manager said the snakes belong to a local couple who stayed in the room for only one night with their five young children, including a baby. The family was evicted by their landlord and themselves informed the police that they left the snakes in the motel.

SPCA said the snakes were later brought to a reptile facility in Ontario. Brantford bans the ownership of pythons.

On the same night, Hamilton animal control officers also found a four-foot long ball python in the bushes in the east end.

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