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KTUU (Anchorage, Alaska) 13 March 07 Burmese python dies during move from Alaska (Angela Unruh)

Anchorage, Alaska: Remember the 16-foot, 130-pound Burmese python in East Anchorage?

Last July, Channel 2 News introduced you to 6-year-old Belinda, who outgrew her 9-by-12 foot room at Alaska Reptile Rescue. In late December, she was sent to a bigger home at the Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo by Maria vonKoehnen from the rescue service.

It was supposed to be a happy ending but a problem along the way has her owners crying foul.

Belinda was shipped via Delta Airlines in a box. According to vonKoehnen, everything went as-planned until Belinda got to Atlanta.

"They put her at the wrong gate and left her at the wrong gate for five and a half hours, outside," said vonKoehnen.

Outside, in 50-degree temperatures, vonKoehnen says that caused Belinda to miss her next flight. So she was put in a warehouse for 15 hours.

"She was not kept at a decent temperature," she said. "From what we understand, she was only kept at 50 degrees. She [needed] to be at 80 to 90 degrees."

Belinda was then flown to Pensacola and when zoo officials arrived at the Pensacola Regional Airport to pick her up, they found her dead.

"He opened her box, opened up her bag and she kind of poked her head out and seemed to be okay. Well, they don't show illness until very late in the game and it was about four weeks later that she showed up with an upper-respiratory infection, which for us is like a very bad cold, and which hence turned into pneumonia.

"And because of her being stuck in her crate, which is her wooden box we had made for her, she ended up in that box for over 31 hours and she ended up with full-body edema. Her liver couldn't take care of it, and so her liver gave out and she passed away March 1," said vonKoehnen.

VonKoehnen says several Delta officials have told her there's nothing they're going to do about her loss.

"I want Delta to accept responsibility for what they have done. And I want Delta to, in some way -- and I don't know how because her life is worth more than anything we could ever ask for -- but somehow I want them to make it right," she said. "We sent her down there to have a better life because we couldn't do it up here with the environment, and she's gone."

Delta Airlines issued a statement regarding this incident this afternoon, saying: "We regret the service failure that occurred in handling the customer's shipment. This error is not acceptable and we are investigating the matter to determine what changes need to be made to prevent a reoccurrence of this type of event."

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, from May 2005 to January 2007, three animals flying Delta Airlines have died, and that's compared to 17 on Continental Airlines, nine on American Airlines and eight on United Airlines.
Burmese python dies during move from Alaska

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