Reptile & Amphibian Forums

WGCL (Atlanta, Georgia) 28 August 10 Atlanta Zoo Releases Public Apology In Rattlesnake’s Escape (Tony McNary)
Atlanta: The Atlanta Zoo released a public apology about the recent incident of a tiger rattlesnake’s escape.
President and CEO Raymond B. King says he was disappointed and embarrassed by the incident. King said they zoo will be re-evaluating procedures and protocols regarding animal management.
Marie Mower lives across the street from Zoo Atlanta. Mower said she walked out on her porch with her young son on Sunday and spotted a rattlesnake.
Mower said the snake was curled up in a corner on her porch.
"That's the disturbing part is the thought that we were standing out here and if he(her son) had walked over that way, you know, he could be dead right now," said Mower.
Mower said when she spotted the snake, she had no clue it was a venomous snake that had escaped from the Atlanta Zoo.
"So I went inside and told my husband there's a rattlesnake on the porch, and so he got a long piece of board and killed it," said Mower.
Zoo officials said they discovered on Thursday, that a Tiger Rattlesnake had escaped it's cage that was left unsecured.
People who live around the zoo said officials did not warn the about the snake.
"I would definitely like more notification. Even if they need to have somebody knocking door-to-door. This was a very dangerous situation. Like I said, she (her child) was out playing in the grass. She could have easily ran up on it -- one bite she could have been dead," said Tiffany Lankford.
CBS Atlanta took our tough questions to the zoo's president.
"Why didn't you alert the neighbors?" asked reporter Tony McNary.
Raymond King said the zoo alerted the Grant Park Neighborhood Association.
"We could not have probably gone door-to-door to every house in the neighborhood. In hindsight, if we had to do it again we probably would have gone and knocked on doors on Atlanta Road," said King.
Atlanta road is the road the snake crossed and found its way on Mower's front porch.
"It's disturbing! I think that if we had had some notice maybe we would have been on the lookout a little more, but we never would have expected a snake from the zoo being able to get up here on the front porch," said Mower.
Zoo Releases Public Apology In Rattlesnake’s Escape

JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION (Atlanta, Georgia) 30 August 10 Poisonous snake found dead 100 yards from Zoo Atlanta (Christian Boone)
A venomous rattlesnake on the loose from Zoo Atlanta for two days before it was killed by a Grant Park homeowner escaped due to human error, a top zoo official confirmed Monday.
The adult female tiger rattlesnake escaped through an "unsecured cage door," Zoo Atlanta deputy director Dwight Lawson told the AJC. It was found across the street from zoo grounds -- roughly 100 yards away on Atlanta Avenue -- where it was clubbed to death by a resident unaware the reptile was on the lam.
Zoo spokeswoman Keisha Hines said Sunday the nocturnal snake was believed to be still inside the building where it was housed, which is not accessible to the public. But Hines could not say why staff thought the snake was still in that building. Hines said signs warning the public were not needed.
"Hindsight being 20/20, we probably should've knocked on a few doors," Lawson said. The local neighborhood association was alerted, he said, and an announcement was made to visitors at the zoo Saturday, he said.
"There's a fine line between letting people know and causing a panic," Lawson told the AJC.
The wife of the man who killed the snake called zoo officials on Monday after hearing about the escaped reptile in the media. "We're still looking at how it got there," Lawson said.
A reptile staff member went to the home, which is under renovation, and found the dead snake on the front porch.
Though Lawson said an announcement was made, many zoo visitors were unaware that the rattler was missing.
“We had no idea. I didn’t see any signs or anything, not even at the reptile exhibit,” said Nancy Fowler, who brought her three children to the zoo.
Tony Lankford, who lives nearby on Sydney Street and volunteered at the Summer Shade Festival held in Grant Park over the weekend, said he was "furious" that neighbors weren't alerted.
"We could have very easily had a dead Grant Park resident or guest, perhaps a child, instead of a dead snake," Lankford told the AJC. "My wife and I spent much of late Sunday allowing our three old daughter, Kaley, to play in the field right outside of the zoo. She, or the little boy playing with here could have easily come across the highly poisonous snake."
"I love the zoo, but as a neighbor I believe Zoo Atlanta underplayed this event and failed their responsiblity to maintain the safety of the guest and residents of this neighborhood," Lankford said.
Jason Spruill, who lives two doors east of the house where the snake was killed, told the AJC on Monday that zoo officials should have notified neighbors that the snake was on the loose.
"I would've looked out for it. I wasn't worried about being bit; I grew up around snakes. If you don't bother them, they won't bother you. ... It was sad it was killed."
David McLeod, owner of Georgia Wildlife Services, said tiger snakes, which are native to the southwest and Central America, are very dangerous.
“They are real toxic,” he said. “Even if you survive the bite, the greatest risk is losing parts of the body like fingers, hands from the death of the tissue.”
McLeod said he has removed pythons and other large snakes, along with raccoons, bats and other critters from many north Georgia homes. Snakes are one of the hardest animals to catch, he said.
“They have a slower metabolism rate so they spend the bulk of the time digesting meals,” he told the AJC. “If it catches a large rat, it may go two-three weeks without a meal.”
That digestion and nap time is usually spent curled up in a dark hidden place, like under a bush or furniture.
“A search for a snake like that is tough because you first got to locate all their hiding places, looking in all kinds of cracks and crevices,” he said.
The at-large snake also didn’t deter crowds from the Summer Shade Festival.
Beth Ann Trammell, who ran a booth selling knitted baby clothes, said she heard about the snake from friends and was surprised the festival was still going on.
“No one’s mentioned it and business has been pretty good,” said Trammell, owner of Burly Bunny in Montgomery, Ala. “But I’ve spent all day listening for a rattle.”
The snake was one of 16 obtained by the zoo last Thursday from the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife, Lawson said.
The employee who failed to secure the reptile will be disciplined, Lawson said.
Poisonous snake found dead 100 yards from Zoo Atlanta

MCDOWELL NEWS (Marion, N Carolina) 02 September 10 Snake, rattle and roll out that apology (Scott Hollifield)
It’s not often I check my e-mail and find an apology for the accidental release of a deadly reptile into a city neighborhood.
Thinly veiled death threats, advertisements for discount Yorkie puppies and forwards of forwards of forwards indisputably proving the president is a secret Muslim socialist space alien with eight toes on each foot are all commonplace, but an apology for the accidental release of a deadly reptile is rare.
But that’s what I received just the other day (or a very long time ago, if you find this as a yellowed clipping stuck between the pages of the Farmer’s Almanac while cleaning out your granny’s attic).
According to the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, an adult tiger rattlesnake escaped from an “unsecured cage door” on Aug. 28 at an Atlanta zoo and slithered around a neighborhood for two days until a resident, unaware that an escaped rattlesnake was in the vicinity, saw it and beat it to death.
A tiger rattlesnake is not some hellish, giant mutant combination of tiger and snake created in a botched gene splicing experiment at a clandestine government lab as I originally thought (coming soon to the SyFy channel: “Tigersnake vs. Sharktopus”), but an actual rattlesnake found in the southwestern United States, northwestern Mexico and, at least for two days, Atlanta.
Some neighbors and visitors thought the zoo should have been more forthcoming that a deadly reptile had escaped, though zoo officials said they made an announcement on the day it occurred.
I imagine it was similar to this: “Hey kids, while you’re having fun at the zoo, be sure to pick up an official Randy the Rhino backpack, the perfect back-to-school item. And if you’re lucky enough find an escaped tiger rattlesnake inside, bring it to the zoo information center at Gate B and redeem it for two free passes!”
Zoo officials kept it low key, fearing visitors might panic and storm the monkey house, which is exactly where I would go if I was being chased by a giant, mutant tigersnake.
"Having since heard concerns from our guests, we now realize that we should have made ongoing announcements," zoo spokeswoman Keisha Hines told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "We apologize to anyone who was not aware of this incident and will continue to evaluate and make adjustments to communications procedures.”
Anyone includes me, even though I was hundreds of miles away working on the screenplay for “Tigersnake vs. Sharktopus.” Here’s an excerpt from the e-mail, subject line “Public Apology,” I received from Raymond B. King, president and CEO of the Atlanta Zoo:
“While I am disappointed and embarrassed by the incident, this event was highly uncharacteristic of Zoo Atlanta and its operations, animal care, communications and personnel.”
In other words, ol’ Bob the zookeeper can count on all three remaining fingers the incidents that have occurred there. (Note: If by chance there is a zookeeper named Bob and he did at some point have his fingers bitten off in an animal-related incident, I sincerely apologize for my insensitivity while trying to coax at least a chuckle from the six people who are still reading at this point.)
King’s e-mail continues: “As a result of this unfortunate event, we are re-evaluating our procedures and protocols regarding animal management and how we communicate…We apologize to anyone who was unaware of the incident, and we regret any worry felt by our community.”
It takes a big man to admit and apologize for the accidental release of a deadly reptile into a city neighborhood, so I accept the apology.
Just send an official Randy the Rhino backpack, two free passes and a promise to financially back my new movie “Tigersnake vs. Sharktopus” to this newspaper and all is forgiven.
Snake, rattle and roll out that apology

JOURNAL CONSTITUTION (Atlanta, Georgia) 13 September 10 In wake of snake escape, DNR advises Zoo Atlanta to review protocols (Christian Boone)
A state Department of Natural Resources team that investigated Zoo Atlanta following last month's escape of a venomous rattlesnake confirmed human error was to blame.
The tiger snake ended up roughly 100 yards away on the front porch of a Grant Park couple, where it was clubbed to death by homeowner Guy Mower. His 2-1/2 year-old son was the first person to encounter the nocturnal viper but was unharmed.
The caretaker responsible for the reptiles "failed to secure the enclosure containing the tiger rattlesnake," DNR Wildlife Resources Division assistant chief John Bowers wrote Monday in a letter to Dwight Lawson, the zoo's deputy director. "This allowed the tiger rattlesnake to escape into the quarantine building and because the building was also being used to hold a small mammal that had access to an outside enclosure, the tiger rattlesnake was able to escape the building."
The employee in question was disciplined, Lawson said. The snake -- which has a toxicity considered the highest of all rattlesnake venom -- was loose for one day, though the zoo didn't learn of its whereabouts until three days after it escaped.
"Specifically, it is critical that all reptile enclosures or containers be secured with a locking mechanism that prevents the animal from escaping," Bowers wrote.
As for the other holding facilities, the zoo met or exceeded minimum standards, the DNR team concluded.
In wake of snake escape, DNR advises Zoo Atlanta to review protocols