44 snakes and lizards almost smuggled on a plane

Not that I’ve thought much about smuggling lizards and snakes on a plane, but reading about this Australian guy who was nabbed a couple days ago trying to smuggle 44 snakes and lizards from Australia to Bangkok got me thinking. Why 44?

Seems to me that’s overshooting one’s luck. Wouldn’t it have been better to stop at 10, perhaps? Not that I want to give anyone smuggling advice since I think animals and plants should be left where they’re found unless it’s legal to transport them and a person has a permit to do so, but I’m flummoxed that this guy thought he could get by with it.

Look at the X-ray. A snake looks like a snake in an X-ray, and a lizard looks like a lizard. Not long ago a woman was apprehended trying to smuggle three banana plants in her underwear. If that didn’t work, considering that plants are inanimate objects, it seems three black headed pythons might attract some attention.

Along with those three he had an Albino Carpet Python, 24 Shingleback Lizards and 16 Blue Tongue Lizards. He must not have seen Catherine’s post from 2007 when a snake smuggling culprit was caught in Cairo. Or maybe when he saw that the Cairo guy was trying to transport 700 snakes, 4 snakes and 44 reptiles didn’t seem like all that many.

For his efforts, he could spend 10 years in jail and be fined a hefty sum. [via Buzz Feed]

Most Annoying Airline Passengers

The holidays are a hard time to travel, and Lemondrop has compiled a gallery of the people who make it even harder.

“The Most Annoying Airline Passengers Ever” include people who stop in the aisle while you’re boarding to rearrange the bag they’re stowing, strangers who talk too much, and everyone in first class.

While they don’t mention my personal nemeses (the people who can’t keep their elbow and/or various other body parts on their side of the arm rest) the list is pretty darn good, and the pictures are fun, too. Special appearance by Samuel L. Jackson in his Snakes on a Plane role.

[via Lemondrop]

Fun in Fairfax: 17 exotic snakes found in hotel room

I hesitate to make snakes on a plane jokes because they’re bad and overused, but in this case I’m going to have to do it once again. What just might be worse than snakes on a plane? Snakes in your hotel room. Fairfax City police said that they found a total of 17 exotic snakes in the room of the Hy-Way Motel last night near Fairfax Circle, VA. 12 of those snakes happened to be poisonous.

The hotel management was alerted to the snake issue because of the report of a foul odor coming from said room; two of the snakes had died which led to the smell. The snakes are believed to belong to an Arlington County man who kept as many as 100 exotic snakes in his home until recently. I think the important question here is: why did the snakes need a getaway at a cheap roadside hotel?

This gives us just another reason as to why it’s important to fully investigate your hotel room (which can harbor some nasty things) before committing to stay in it for the night.

Think that’s weird? What strange things have been found on planes?


Click the image to read the bizarre story…

Actual Snakes on a Plane

It’s happened before, both in a movie and in real life, but somehow snakes keep squirming their way onto planes, this time on a Vietnam Airlines flight from Bangkok to Hanoi.

On Thursday, authorities at Hanoi’s Noi Boi Airport discovered thousands of non-venomous snakes that had been shipped as cargo in 60 boxes. According to the Associated Press, Trinh Ngoc Thanh, Vietnam Airline’s spokesman, said that the boxes had been declared as carrying live fish. Unfortunately for the snakes, who had been packed in ice water, many died en route. Those who had made it alive were transferred to the Wild Animal Rescue center in Hanoi.

This isn’t the first time that Vietnam has had a snake shipment problem. Last month authorities found 1,540 pounds of dead snakes on a Thai Airways flight from Bangkok. Besides raising questions about cargo inspection at the Bangkok airport, it also points at an important wildlife issue; Ptyas Mucosus, the scientific name for the snakes, are a protected species, thereby implying illegal trade.

In any event, for those of you traveling through Southeast Asia, it might be a good idea to keep Samuel L. Jackson’s number on hand. He did do an impressive job dealing with those on-board snakes in the movie

Thanks to Snakes on a Plane, Fluffy, the world’s largest snake in a zoo, is staying put

Crating up and sending home Fluffy, the largest snake in captivity, as far as anyone knows, proved to be too much effort –and that’s a good thing for the Columbus Zoo. Besides that, the movie Snakes on a Plane has created a we don’t like to put snakes on a plane mentality by shipping companies. The snake was on loan from the guy who raised it. Can you imagine feeding a python from birth to be one whopping snake that people don’t want to take anywhere?

Bob Clark, the former owner, sold the snake to the zoo for $35,000 after a plan to get Fluffy back to his abode in Oklahoma City didn’t work out. Clark originally didn’t want to part with the snake forever. The company who got the snake to the Columbus Zoo early last year and was to get it back home in November has gone out of business and there weren’t any takers when it came to finding a replacement company.

Besides that, the zoo keepers looked at the size of the snake and sighed every time they thought about crating Fluffy up. Not only is he monstrous–imagine 300 pounds, 24-feet long and “girth the size of a watermelon”, he’s been a real boost the the zoo. Fluffy’s presence draws people to the zoo and folks have been pestering the zoo to keep Fluffy anyway. One of my trips to the zoo this past year was to see Fluffy and I’ve mentioned the world’s largest snake as part of the draw. Who needs the world’s tallest building when you have the world’s largest snake in captivity?

Now that the zoo is keeping Fluffy, that will save some redecorating costs. The exhibit can stay as is and not be refigured for some other critter. When I first saw the exhibit, I thought it was permanent. When I heard Fluffy was just on loan, it felt sad to think of the python’s departure.

I bet the folks at the Columbus International Airport are happy as well. On one of the concourse walls there is a life-size photograph of Fluffy, all stretched out advertising the zoo. It’s a great photograph and fits perfectly where it is. [via Columbus Dispatch]