HAINING, Portland — When farmer Minette Minott saw a huge yellow snake on her farm in this rural community, her immediate thought was that it likely had a friend nearby.

Her adult son Marvin Watson was the one who alerted her to the reptile about 7:00 am on Tuesday. He had headed out to check on his crop and she was headed in the same direction to pick a pepper and pumpkins.

According to Minott, from the feathers on the ground, Watson initially thought there were birds sleeping in a sweetwood tree above.

“When he looked up there was a big snake,” she told the Jamaica Observer.

“I went round and say, ‘This snake too big to stay here. There is one, and the second one may be somewhere close,’ ” added Minott.

She then decided to call a friend who works with National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA).

“He called one of his co-worker. I said, ‘Come and get it or I will kill it!’ ” the feisty woman recalled.

She told the Observer she tried to take a picture of the snake so NEPA could have an idea what she was up against.

“When I went back it moved from where it was and then it wrapped around the tree very neatly, and you couldn’t get a visible picture,” she said.

Minott said after about an hour-and-a half, NEPA employee Daniel Francis came to help. He said the snake was “between eight to nine feet long and we had to cut the tree down to get it”.

“I assisted him. He took it down. I wasn’t afraid or anything because, you know, when you are a warrior [you have no fear]; I am a warrior,” Minott said with a chuckle.

In a video recorded by another woman, who repeatedly expressed her fear of the boa, Minott could be seen helping Francis secure the snake in a bag then tying the mouth of the sack.

“It was fun helping to capture her, and I learned a little. [Now] I know the male different from the female,” she said.

The farmer says she will be on the lookout for other snakes.

“I have to be careful now because I love to go to the bush early morning. What I am going to do is cut down the whole area so I don’t have anything to harbour, no snake,” she vowed.

At first Minott was conflicted about what she would do if she encountered another snake on her land.

“If me go a bush and buck up that, next time a going kill it. NEPA may not get the chance to come and get it,” she said.

Then she had a change of heart.

“They don’t want me to kill it anyway, but what I will do the next time, I will still call them,” she finally decided.

Anyone who harms the Jamaican yellow boa is liable for prosecution, because it is a protected species. It is endemic to the country, not poisonous, not a threat to humans, and it mostly eats rodents.

— Everard Owen