Temporary Care for Corn Snake

I need some advice from experienced snake owners. Recently purchased an old farm truck in Alabama and transported it to Pennsylvania. To my surprise there was a roughly two year old corn snake living in the truck. It is too cold in PA right now (below freezing) to release it in the wild. I have him setup in an enclosure inside right now. He seems healthy and is eating live pinkies.

The question is, will I be able to release him back to the wild in PA once the weather warms up (early June)? Will he become "lazy" and not survive in the wild? Will a snake from a warm climate survive long cold winters? I want to do whats best for the snake, any opinions would be appreciated.

Corn snakes are not native to your state. You might also have it too long in captivity to be legal to release in Alabama if you keep it. You need to check the laws in Alabama which is where you accidentally 'collected' the snake, and probably call fish and game in Alabama as well as your state to explain that you found this snake in a truck you bought and you are unsure what to do with it.

Corn snakes are primarily found int he Southeastern USA. He probably won't survive in Pennsylvania, and if he did, he'd be quite lonely. It's probably illegal to keep him as well, but you can check into that. I'd follow the law for sure, some wildlife penalties are worse than traffic violations and such. (For example I know a guy who lost his Truck, his Boat, his fishing gear, and spent a few days in jail because he kept too many fish on a fishing outing. Ouch!)

I'd follow Shiari's advice above and call the Wildlife officials and explain the situation, and possibly return the snake. But under no circumstances should you release it in Pennsylvania. That might even be against the law.

Thank you for the advice. I am going to take the snake to my local Ag Extension office and explain the situation. Hopefully they can give me guidance. Otherwise I'll stop in to the Game Commission office and talk to them.

As the others have said it's a unique legal situation. Just a guess but since Alabama corn snakes are actually a locality of corns in the hobby they are probably legal to collect, but again check with fish and game. I would not release it into the wild. The northern most range of corn snakes is central MD.

Depending on where you are in PA I might be able to help some with getting it meals larger than a pinkie (assuming your aren't talking a rat pinkie). I live in Pa but technically I'm still a MD resident with my reptile (catch/breed/sell) permit there. PA allows corns to be kept.

Here is an excerpt from pa laws: "PA Fish and Boat Commission regulations only pertain to native species of PA. In other words, our regulations do not cover any species not found in PA. Therefore, you would not need a permit from our agency."