Pet snakes turned loose into the wild of the Canary Islands are devastating the native wildlife. Do we never learn? Islands around the world are confronting similar problems for alien animals brought by humans and then escaping into the wild. The latest story can be found @ http://www.newser.com/story/185992/an-albino-snake-is-plaguing-the-canary-islands.html
not just islands, Florida everglades and elsewhere here http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlin...ke-on-the-loose-has-sc-community-on-lockdown/ A highly venomous snake, native to Africa, has been slithering around a South Carolina community, putting residents on edge. We walk our dogs every night and I have a flashlight with me everywhere I go, every step I take its scary, said Aaron Long, resident of the Harbour Pointe apartment complex in Mount Pleasant. When a pest control company came last week to do a regular checkup on the bait boxes at the complex, the exterminator found snake skins nearby, took a picture, and reported it to the management office. The skin was still moist, indicating it was freshly shed, Jennifer Bailey, an employee at the Harbor Pointe Apartments, told ABC News today. To identify the snake, the office contacted a snake expert hours later who came in and said that the skin came from a Gaboon viper, an exotic snake not indigenous to the U.S. Another local herpetologist confirmed the identity through a photograph the pest control took, Bailey said.
Animals without natural predators are very, very bad for the environment. Look what happened when humans spread like a plague. Personally I think it should be illegal to deal in or possess snakes of any type.
