On Tuesday, Daniel Marchand, curator of the Phoenix Herpetological Society, was asked to remove the animals from the home in the 1200 block of East Barcelona Avenue. He responded with the society’s chairman, Russ Johnson.
The society received a frantic call from a Phoenix woman asking that the animals be taken from the house she owned after her nephew, a 24-year-old man, reportedly had been arrested on drug charges. In all, 10 venomous rattlesnakes, all native to the Arizona desert, were removed. Among the species found were Mohave, diamondback, tiger, black-tailed, sidewinder, prairie and blue speckled rattlesnakes. A venomous Arizona coral snake and two nonvenomous snakes, a coachwhip and vine snake, were also found in aquariums.
Besides the snakes, Marchand found one fattail scorpion, one of the deadliest in the world from the Middle East, which had to be killed due to the danger. There was also a centipede, three frogs, a black widow spider and what the men believe to be a trapdoor spider. Dogs were in the house too, and animal control took them away.
There were no animals left in the home, Marchand said.
All the critters will be sent to zoos in the U.S. and around the world, he said. The society said it could not release the animals into the wild because they might have parasites and they no longer know how to hunt because of their captivity.
“Rattlesnakes and other animals need to be left in their natural habitat,” Marchand said. “They are not suitable pets.”
He said that no reason was given for the man’s having the critters other than he apparently liked them.