Nanjing customs authorities are long used to intercepting pests during their daily labours. Among the animals they come across are the common garden variety, the unusual and all kinds of exotica. Then there is also the extremely deadly, species such as the king cobra.
It was just in the last few days that officers in Zhangjiagang customs, affiliated to Nanjing Customs, came across the life-threatening snake during quarantine and supervision at their imported timber division.
The snake came in with a shipment of logs, which, according to standard procedure, was first fumigated. It was when customs officers were preparing for further quarantine inspection that they saw the snake under an empty container.
Fully 4 metres long, the average for an adult king cobra, the snake’s body was the thickness of a human arm. It took four customs officers and several additional staff members at the wharf to seize the cobra with a snake trap.
Throughout its capture, the king cobra kept spraying its lethal venom that makes it one of the deadliest snakes in the world, reports The World Journal.
The snake is at present being temporarily held in a transparent and breathable box in a laboratory at Zhangjiagang customs.
It is unknown from which country the snake had been imported. A staff member at Zhangjiagang Customs said, “We speculate that the snake came in with the logs. When it was found, it had escaped the original container”.
Zhangjiagang port, under the administration of Suzhou in Jiangsu Province, is the main distribution centre for imported, broad-leaved forest timber in China. From January to October of this year alone, Zhangjiagang Customs intercepted more than 12,000 alien pests from 320 species in imported wood.
The king cobra is the cannibal of the snake world, preying on its own species, other snakes and lizards.
The king is found in the wild in southern China and all over South and Southeast Asia. A bite from a king cobra can kill a human in just 30 minutes.
A protected species in both China and Vietnam, in India the king is thought of as the national reptile. According to The Times of India, under the Indian Wildlife Protection Act, killing a king cobra can carry a prison term of up to 6 years.
The king cobra was in 2010 listed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature as a vulnerable species, threatened by habitat destruction.
