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After a giant 15-feet-long python slithered into Jaitpur village in Madhya Pradesh and swallowed an entire goat, the alarmed villagers immediately called the forest officials. What happened next was strange.

As the video (above) filmed by the villagers shows, the forest officials are seen pulling the goat out of the python’s jaws. Akhil Baba, a snake rescue expert (wearing a pink shirt in the video), is seen holding the snake, while another official pulls the goat out. Immediately, Akhil Baba holds the python immobile using a stick. The goat is dead by then.

It is not clear what propelled the officials to intrude on the python, which was, after all, fulfilling its role in the food chain in natural course.

It took a while for the forest officials to spot the snake, which had hidden itself in a pit among the bushes after its heavy meal. They put the python into a gunny bag, and later released it back in the forest. Akhil Baba also told The Daily Mail, “It was a 15 ft-long python. To take the reptile out from the pit among the bushes was a tough job but we managed it well.”

Correction and clarification: An earlier version of this report, including the headline, implied that the act of the forest officials was a laudable one. This was an erroneous interpretation of their action. The article and headline have been edited to reflect that it was a possibly unwarranted act of intrusion on a wild animal.