Skip to footer

New Jersey anaconda: What's in Lake Hopatcong?

New Jersey anaconda potentially in the state's largest lake has caused concern among local residents. Traps have been set in Lake Hopatcong, but questions remain over whether it's actually a New Jersey anaconda or some other reptile.

|
Daniel Freel/The New Jersey Herald/AP
Gerald Andrejcak, assistant director of Common Sense for Animals in Warren County, N.J, searches a large drainage pipe for a large snake – possibly a New Jersey anaconda – in Lake Hopatcong near Jefferson, N.J.
  • By Associated Press

| JEFFERSON, N.J.

Reports of a 16-foot-long exotic snake — possibly a New Jersey anaconda — slithering through New Jersey's largest lake have stoked fears among residents and led to searches and questions about what exactly is in the water.

Traps have been set in Lake Hopatcong, while animal control officers and a private reptile expert have been hunting for the snake, first spotted earlier this month.

A spokesman for the state's Department of Environmental Protection said there have been no confirmed sightings of the snake and no evidence that it's acutally there.

"We've been trying to take this seriously, because if there is a dangerous creature we want to help capture it," spokesman Larry Ragonese said. "At this point, we've gone a couple weeks now with a growing story of an exotic creature roaming the lake, and there's hundreds of eyes now trained on it. If there was to be something, you would think that that someone would have seen it."

Gerald Andrejcak said that he has.

Andrejcak, assistant director of New Jersey's Common Sense for Animals, says that he spotted the head and part of a body of what he estimated as a 16-foot-long anaconda last week. He said he cornered it before it escaped by slithering between his legs.

"You can't miss an anaconda head. If you've ever dealt with any kind of snakes, any type of anaconda, you can never forget that head," Andrejcak said. "I know the color and the patterns and everything else. Right off the bat, I knew exactly what it was right when I saw it."

Andrejcak said that commotion from boats in the area by onlookers coming to try to spot the snake may have led the snake to go elsewhere.

The 4-square mile lake about 30 miles northwest of Newark is surrounded by five towns and is the largest freshwater lake in the state.

"I would like to see me get this thing, get it into a zoo safe where someone isn't going to shoot it, kill it," he said. "The snake can be on display, safe in captivity and the lake community can get back to normal."

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to New Jersey anaconda: What's in Lake Hopatcong?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Latest-News-Wires/2014/0723/New-Jersey-anaconda-What-s-in-Lake-Hopatcong
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe