14-foot python found dead on Trash Wheel in Gwynns Falls

Beer kegs and drug paraphernalia are common collectibles of the region’s trash wheels.

Sex toys, a guitar and Balenciaga shoes worth about $1,600 are among the oddities the trash wheel has raked in from the water, said Cyril Appleby-Kellett, the director of operations of Clearwater Mills, the local company behind the garbage-sucking machines.

But what he saw as he climbed down the ladder of the machine around 11 a.m. Tuesday on the Gwynns Falls was a stretch too far: a 14-foot python.

“I just about jumped out of my skin,” Appleby-Kellett said.

It didn’t take him long to realize the snake was, to his relief, dead.

“Until you actually look closely at its head, it didn’t actually look dead,” he said.

Appleby-Kellett is the nephew of John Kellett, the inventor of Mr. Trash Wheel, a trash interceptor that’s a familiar sight in the Jones Falls near where it empties into Baltimore’s harbor. His role in the family business includes monitoring cameras in the trash wheels, automating their trash pickup and emptying the dumpsters when they get full.

On Tuesday, Appleby-Kellett went to empty the dumpster of the trash wheel known as Gwynnda the Good Wheel of the West. That’s when he found the snake taking up 14 feet of space on the machine and emitting an unpleasant odor.

He took to Instagram to show how a crew member lifted the snake and disposed of it with the rest of the trash.

This isn’t the first time a member of the Trash Wheel family has picked up a python. Adam Lindquist, the vice president of the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore, said in a statement that Mr. Trash Wheel collected a live python in 2014.

Appleby-Kellett’s brother found that one. The family kept it for a while before giving it away, he said.

“Finding one in the Gwynns Falls is not something we consider a normal occurrence,” Lindquist said of the stream that extends from Reisterstown in Baltimore County to the city of Baltimore. “It was unfortunate to see that the snake was deceased, although a tropical species like this would not be expected to survive a Baltimore winter.”

Pythons are among the biggest snakes in the world and can grow up to 33 feet. They’re typically found in Africa, Asia and Australia in grasslands, swamps and rainforests.

“Pythons are kept as pets, so a snake like this found in Baltimore was almost certainly an escaped or released animal rather than part of a wild population,” Lindquist said.

Should anyone else spot a large exotic snake in the open, he suggested keeping a safe distance, not trying to capture it and calling animal control.

Running upon a 14-foot-long python, though, shows how the work to keep water in the Baltimore region clean looks different every day.