WHITEHALL TWP., Pa. — Emergency crews rushed to help a woman who reported being bitten by some sort of snake in her car.The woman, who parked at the Sheetz in Whitehall Township, Lehigh County, told a 911 dispatcher she felt dizzy.She said there was a snake in her car two weeks ago, but when her husband went to get it out, he couldn’t find it. So, they figured it was gone.After arriving on the scene, emergency crews determined she was actually stung by a bee.
Mich. man kills 3-foot gator while picking corn
A man gathering sweet corn in southern Michigan is the latest to have an unexpected encounter with an alligator.
The animals have been showing up far north of their traditional habitats this summer.
Jeff Adamski of Burr Oak says he was picking corn near the Michigan-Indiana border when two women who were a few rows over came running and screaming, saying they had seen an alligator.
Adamski tells the Sturgis Journal the alligator darted toward him and kept coming as he backed away. Adamski moved faster, but then he began to worry about a child being attacked by the nearly 3-foot reptile.
He grabbed a 4-foot bar from his truck and killed it.
Alligators also have been seen in recent weeks in the Chicago River, a Boston suburb and New York City.
Malaysian man gets jail and fine for smuggling 95 snakes
Kuala Lumpur – A Malaysian court on Monday sentenced a wildlife trafficker to six months in jail and a fine of 190,000 ringgit (about 61,000 dollars) for trying to smuggle out of the country 95 boa constrictors hidden in his luggage.
Anson Wong Keng Liang, 52, had earlier pleaded guilty at the Sepang district court to the charge of exporting endangered reptiles without a permit. He was arrested August 26 at Kuala Lumpur International Airport while en route from the northern state of Penang to Indonesia.
The reptiles were found when Wong’s check-in luggage broke on the conveyor belt. Besides the boa constrictors, authorities also found two rhinoceros vipers and a turtle.
Wong – one of the subjects of a book titled Lizard King, which detailed the international wildlife trade – was sentenced in 2000 to 71 months jail in the United States on trafficking charges.
Egg-laying lizards on verge giving live births
Scientists have caught up with lizards about to abandon egg-laying for live births in an evolutionary leap.
The skink, snake-like with four tiny legs, has been found laying eggs along the New South Wales coast in Australia.
However, its counterpart, a three-toed lizard inhabiting the colder mountainous region of the country, is giving birth to offspring, reports the Daily Mail.
There are only two other types of reptiles which rely on both types of reproductive modes – another skink species and European lizard.
One in five snakes and lizards gives birth to live young, among the nearly 100 reptile lineages that have changed from egg-laying in the past, reports the journal National Geographic.
Study co-author James Stewart, East Tennessee State University biologist, in the US, said the discovery afforded them with an unique opportunity.
‘By studying differences among populations that are in different stages of this process, you can begin to put together what looks like the transition from one [birth style] to the other,’ he said.
Stewart said the transformation could be linked to how newborns get nourishment. Or it could be a way of protecting the young in harsher climates.
Snake caught after slithering through Sicklerville
Residents at the Tammerlane Housing Complex have been a bit leery about enjoying the beautiful holiday weekend weather.
That comes after a resident caught a python outside last night and police say a second snake may still be on the loose.
Resident Donald Causey captured the four-foot python with his bare hands.
Neighbors say they think someone moved out of the complex and left
this snake behind.
The management office sent a letter to tenants informing them about a loose snake.
But the one snake that was caught may not be the only one.
Ron Clark says the snake he saw on his front porch Tuesday night was about two feet longer than the one Donald captured.
Winslow Township police tell Action News they’re not sure how many other snakes are slithering around the development.
It is legal to own a python in the state of New Jersey, but only if owners have a permit.
Police are urging anyone who spots a snake to call 911 or animal control and report the snake’s location. They say you should not try to capture the snake yourself.
5-foot snake captured in South Los Angeles
Firefighters received an unusual call to capture a 5-foot snake in South Los Angeles early Saturday morning.
A woman called 911 just after midnight after spotting the snake on west 46th Street, between Halldale and Denker avenues.
Firefighters hauled the snake away after wrangling it into a 5-gallon bucket.
There is no word on what kind of snake it was, but firefighters plan to turn it over to animal services
.
Ohio to ban exotic animal ownership
New rules banning the sale and ownership of exotic pets could put an end to Ohio’s wild history of regulatory gaps.
The promised rules are the result of an agreement Gov. Ted Strickland brokered between the Humane Society of the United States and farm groups to keep an animal welfare initiative off the November ballot. The rules will grandfather current pets but they won’t allow replacement or breeding.
Strickland’s agreement indicates animals banned will at least include “big cats, bears, primates, large constricting and venomous snakes and alligators and crocodiles.”
In the Miami Valley, runaway or out-of-control beasts created a second career for now retired Oakwood police officer Tim Harrison. A documentary on his exploits corralling cougars, hyenas, snakes, reptiles and bears, titled “The Elephant in the Living Room,” was released this year and will be shown at The Neon in Dayton the first week of October.
Harrison, 54, of Springboro said the subculture of exotic animal ownership has been fueled by reality television and naive people with illusions they can control dangerous animals, creating a deadly situation in Ohio. “You can buy a cobra, but you can’t buy common sense,” he said.