Kampala  - A 30-year-old python housed in a Ugandan animal conservation centre has hatched 40 offspring, newspaper reports said Friday but wildlife officials later said that the young reptiles will be released into the wild as the large group cannot be maintained.

The giant snake which was rescued from a hotel in 2007 and kept at the Uganda Wildlife Education Centre (UWEC) in the lake-side town of Entebbe, 42 kilometres south-east of the capital Kampala, was incubating a cluster of eggs slightly bigger than the size of a chicken's until they hatched Friday, the government paper The New Vision reported.

For conservation purposes, UWEC keeps reptiles and other animals like chimpanzees which are mostly those rescued from captors, poachers and from illegal confinement.

The organizations executive director, Andrew Seguya later told Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa) that the young snakes will be released into one of the country's national parks but that their survival is limited because they are usually eaten by other animals particularly the monitor lizards. (dpa)