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Are Dancing Cobras Taking Over North Carolina?
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by tigers9 on June 5, 2008
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Hi.
Here is the article for which I needed cobra/hognose pics, full of hyperlinks so I will not post the whole article here. Again, THANKS to everybody who helped with pics, still working on YouTube educational slide show using the awesome pics people generously donated.
Z
==
http://www.bloggernews.net/116058
Are Dancing Cobras Taking Over North Carolina?
REXANO Editorial By Zuzana Kukol, www.REXANO.org
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RE: Are Dancing Cobras Taking Over North Carolina?
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by tigers9 on June 6, 2008
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http://www.fayobserver.com/article?id=296059
Published on Saturday, June 07, 2008
Cobra story likely a king-size fantasy
Catherine Pritchard
Q: Whatever happened with the snake they thought was a cobra down in Cedar Creek? I’m curious to know if it’s still around. — K.D., Fayetteville
A: Snakes alive! Or not. We don’t know.
But try not to sweat about it. Snake experts said they’re positive it wasn’t a deadly king cobra seen in some woods in Cedar Creek last month.
“It’s just too preposterous,” said Scott McKenzie, assistant director of the Cape Fear Serpentarium in Wilmington, where real cobras are securely contained and on display.
For one thing, cobras aren’t native to North Carolina or even North America. Instead, they originate in tropical and subtropical areas of Asia and Africa.
The only way one could end up in the wild here was if someone let it go. And that seems extremely unlikely.
“I remain skeptical... of the likelihood of someone releasing a king cobra,” said Alvin Braswell, curator of amphibians and reptiles at the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences. “You don’t buy one for small dollars. It takes big bucks to get hold of one.”
McKenzie agreed. “Someone at the level of keeping cobras definitely wouldn’t be releasing them into the wild,” he said. “They’re expensive.”
What about an accidental release? Also extremely unlikely. Even if it were legal to keep a cobra in Cumberland County — and, as with all exotic animals, it isn’t — it’s unlikely that someone would keep the deadly snake in a container that wasn’t secured.
The man who saw the snake said it was 8 to 10 feet long, about 3 inches in diameter and grayish with green markings. He said it reared up about shoulder-height, then dropped to the ground and whizzed away to a brush-covered abandoned house. He thought it might be a king cobra (which is the only cobra species to grow over 7 feet).
When nearby residents heard the story, they wondered if the snake might have eaten some puppies and chickens that had recently gone missing.
No way, said McKenzie and Braswell. Cobras don’t eat mammals or fowl. They eat other snakes.
If against all the odds, it was a cobra, McKenzie said there’d still be little to worry about. It wouldn’t reproduce. And it probably wouldn’t survive either the unfamiliar territory or a cold winter.
“I’m sure he saw a snake and he probably got scared,” McKenzie said. “You wouldn’t believe the ability for someone to exaggerate the size of the snake in their story.”
Seen a snake and wonder what it is? Go to www.bio.davidson.edu/projects/ herpcons/herps_of_NC/snakes/ SnakeID/search.asp and plug in the snake’s characteristics to see what it might be.
Q: Can you give me contact information for Nike? — B.T., Fayetteville
A: You can write the shoe company at 1 Bowerman Drive, Beaverton, OR 97005-6453 or call (800) 806-6453.
You can also e-mail the company through its Web site, www.nike.com.
Live Wire seeks to answer questions of general interest and consumer topics within two weeks. Initials are used to identify questioners when names are given. Contact Live Wire at livewire@fayobserver.com, http://blogs.fayobserver.com/livewire or 486-3516.
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