Someone tried to mail live poisonous snakes and please never do this
In the U.S., it’s illegal to mail alcoholic beverages, firearms, perishable foods, plants, money, pornography and, you know, live animals. We’re not exactly sure of the legalities of shipping items out of China, but shipping and receiving live animals in Canada is definitely not allowed.
But someone in China deemed it appropriate to mail three live snakes to Canada anyway. And not just any snakes — poisonous snakes that require an anti-venom Canada doesn’t have access to.
The package full of nightmares was discovered last week at a Canada Post distribution center in British Columbia. Inside were three mang mountain pit vipers on their way to Manitoba. Two were dead — likely because they traveled across an ocean in a box with little to no oxygen. The third snake was still alive, and clearly extremely frightened, because it managed to escape its box and was found loose in a larger box. false
Mang mountain pit vipers live in the forest in China are known to be shy and calm, unless they’re protecting their eggs. Or unless they’ve been stuffed in a box and forced to endure a horrendous living environment. So we imagine the surviving snake was pissed, creating a very scary situation for post office workers.
Owning snakes is illegal under B.C.’s Wildlife Act, and this isn’t the first time conservation officers have encountered someone attempting to smuggle them. But it’s the first time they’ve seen anyone send them via mail.
Officials are investigating whether anyone in B.C. is connected to importing the vipers, according to Huffington Post British Columbia. And from there, they’ll decide the fate of the snake.
Hopefully they’ll take the snake somewhere safe to live — after all, it wasn’t the snake’s decision to be shipped across the world!
