The St Petersburg Times reports today that a two-foot-long false water cobra showed up in my county here in florida (st petersburg) after the snake was mistakenly shipped to a UPS store here.
"The snake...was on its way from a Virginia pet store to a man in Vero Beach. The package had the wrong ZIP code, which is how it ended up in Pinellas County" (on the other side of florida from the intended destination). "The company learned that a snake was in the unmarked, six-inch cube-shaped box only when the Vero Beach man called to complain his package was late.
"UPS, which has a policy against shipping snakes, immediately called state authorities" and refused, the paper says, to forward the snake to the intended destination. At that point, the report says, the intended recipient forfeited the snake to a St Pete-area nonprofit wildlife rescue and rehab organization. "UPS is conducting an investigation, saying the shipper violated the company's policies." Neither the Virginia pet store nor the intended recipient was identified in the story.
The animal rescue guy told the paper the ssnake "is venemous but not as dangerous as a real cobra."
