THE RECORDER (Greenfield, Massachusetts) 20 Dcember 07 Snake raid nets 3 vipers (George W. Claxton)
Greenfield: Environmental police and local police raided a house on Woodard Avenue Wednesday to remove three poisonous snakes that were being kept there without permits.
According to environmental police officer David Kinner, the three South American eyelash vipers were being kept as pets.
Police say that they were tipped off to the presence of the poisonous snakes.
'When we served the search warrant, the people in the house were very cooperative,' said Kinner, who declined to identify them because he hasn't pressed charges yet.
Police haven't decided whether they will charge the snakes' owners with civil or criminal offenses.
According to Kinner, the three vipers from Greenfield will be taken to a reptile rehabilitation center in eastern Massachusetts run by Rain Forest Reptile Shows.
Michael K. Ralbovsky, of Rain Forest Reptile Shows, says that his company currently has 45 venomous snakes that have been seized by police in several states. He says that he and other members of the company often travel long distances to take possession of the animals, but they also find plenty of business in Massachusetts.
'In 2007, we have gotten 22 calls and have taken in 30 animals, including venomous snakes, alligators and crocodiles,' he said.
Most of the animals that they have taken in this year have been from the crocodile family, according to Ralbovsky.
'We took a Nile crocodile out of a drug bust in Lynn two years ago,' he said.
The Nile crocodile is the second largest of the African crocodilians and can grow to be as long as 16 feet and weigh as much as 2,000 pounds.
Ralbovsky said that the crocodile that they found weighed 1,850 pounds.
The workers at Rain Forest Reptile Shows bring their animals to schools and libraries to educate children about the rain forests and the need to protect animal habitat. They also train environmental police and animal wardens in the proper handling of dangerous animals.
'There have been cases where there are cobras in a house where there are drug raids going on and the police are just not trained to handle that,' he said.
Most often, according to Kinner, the illegal animals are just kept as pets.
'Last year, we took a 3-foot long alligator out of a frat house at UMass. They had it in a big aquarium in the basement,' he said.
The eyelash viper gets its name from the horn-like scales that protrude above each eye.
The Woodard Avenue snakes were all juveniles and were perhaps eight to 10 inches long. The adult eyelash viper grows to around 40 inches. They are a short, slim snake with a prehensile tail and are perfectly adapted for hunting in the high canopies of South and Central American forests.
South American eyelash snakes are pit vipers, which means that they locate their prey by using heat-sensing organs located at the front of their heads between the eyes and the nostrils.
Snake collectors often like eyelash vipers because of their bright colors, which range from a brilliant yellow to a kind of green and red camouflage pattern that allows them to blend in well with the leaves, mosses and vines of their natural habitat. Eyelash vipers are tree-dwelling snakes.
When still, the eyelash viper can easily be mistaken for a piece of the tree in which it lives and this allows it to wait in ambush for its next meal. Juvenile eyelash vipers will sometimes wiggle their tails to make them look like worms in order to lure in small birds and rodents.
The small vipers mainly feed on frogs and lizards, but they will also prey upon birds and small mammals when they can get them.
Eyelash vipers have developed a peculiar striking method in that they hold onto the prey that they bite, unlike other vipers, as otherwise the prey animal would fall out of the tree and drop to the ground, which could be quite far below.
Despite being venomous, eyelash vipers are widely available in the exotic animal trade and are frequently bred in captivity for color and pattern.
The bite of the eyelash viper is not generally deadly to humans, but can make a person very sick.
Female eyelash vipers give birth to live young and litters of 8 to 16 baby snakes are common. The young vipers are capable of agile climbing feats almost immediately after birth.
Kinner said that snakes of this kind can be bought in New Hampshire, Rhode Island and other nearby states but are illegal to possess in Massachusetts without a permit.
'In order to get a permit, you have to apply to the Fisheries and Wildlife Department,' he said.
Snake raid nets 3 vipers

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