Snake grounds jet with 370 passengers in Sydney

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A tiny Asian snake was found on a Qantas Boeing 747 airliner in Australia, leading to 370 passengers being grounded overnight.

Staff found the 20-centimeter (8-inch) Mandarin rat snake in the passenger cabin near the door late Sunday before passengers were due to board the flight bound for Tokyo from Sydney International Airport, Qantas said in a statement Monday.

Australia's flagship airline said passengers were given hotel rooms and left Sydney on a replacement plane Monday morning. Qantas said the original jet would be fumigated before returning to service in case there were other snakes on board.

The snake was taken by quarantine officials for analysis.

The Agriculture Department said the snake, a species that grows to an average 1.2 meters (4 feet), had been euthanized, "as exotic reptiles of this kind can harbor pests and diseases not present in Australia."

The department said the snake had arrived aboard the jet in a flight a day earlier from Singapore.

"The Department of Agriculture is looking into how the snake came to be on the plane, but isn't able to speculate at this time," it said in a statement.

The mildly venomous Asian snake was about the width of a pencil and did not pose a threat to humans, but it had the potential to cause ecological havoc in the Australian environment if it had escaped the plane with a mate, Canberra Reptile Zoo herpetologist Peter Child said.

While snakes rarely pose aviation hazards, a 3-meter (10-foot) python in January clung to the wing of a Qantas flight from northeast Australia to Papua New Guinea. The python died during the flight but was still attached to the wing when the two-hour flight ended.

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Woman’s house burned down by snake she set on fire

 

One woman’s extreme reaction to finding a snake in her yard backfired in tragic fashion. After being set on fire, the flaming snake caused the woman’s home to burn down.

KSLA News reports that the house fire started in Bowie County, Texas, when the snake’s burning body came into contact with a nearby pile of brush.

“While cleaning up, she saw a snake, threw gasoline on the snake, lit the snake on fire,” Bowie County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Randall Baggett told the station. “The snake went into the brush pile, and the brush pile caught the home on fire.”

Oddly enough, a local fire department official says the incident isn’t as unique as one might think.

"Yes, it could happen with rabbits and big field mice,” Liberty Eylau Fire Chief David Wesslehoft told the station. “Once they start burning the grass, they get out of their hole. They have been known to catch fire and then take off."

Naturally, we prefer stories in which the nonhuman players are the heroes, not the victims. For instance, in December, one alert chicken reportedly saved the life of its owners when its clucking woke them up during a fire. Or, the hero rabbit that saved a family when their house went up in flames.

The resulting fire at the Texas home was so intense it completely destroyed the home and even burned part of the neighbor’s house. Even worse for the homeowner, local authorities reserve the right to file charges against her.

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Hong Kong King snake a dying breed

Hong Kong (Reuters)-when a King cobra lunges to Chau Ka-ling as the door to his wooden cage falls opened in his busy restaurant in Hong Kong, she just Laughs, then she pulls gently into his arms.

To Chau is a "Snake King," one of the scores of Hong Kong who have tamed through generations snakes to make soup out of them, traditional cuisine is believed to be good for health.

Yet the folks behind providing fresh snakes for the salty meal thought to accelerate blood flow in the body and maintain strong during the cold winter months can be ordered, with young people increasingly reluctant to take on a job that they see as tough and dirty.

"He's my boss, he supports my life," said Chau serpens has cradled a Shia Wong Hip, a popular shop that serves more than 1,000 bowls of hot soup snake on winter days busier.

Trained by his father in childhood to handle snakes, Chau, now in its first 50 years, assumed the business that he founded, serving a small bowl of soup to 35 Hong Kong dollars (2.8 pounds).

From boiling the essence out of the snake, chicken and pork bones, spicing with a variety of ingredients that include five types of snake meat, traditional southern Chinese snack can take more than six hours to make.

Still, as the cold deepens in the weeks leading up to Chinese new year and the year of the snake ushers in the 10 February, Hong Kong locals shaking inside small roadside shops like hers.

The thick soup is spiced with hints of Lemongrass, while the snake itself tasted like chicken but it's harder.

"Snake soup can help you stay healthy, and when the climate is cold helps keep you from getting the flu, said Stephen Lau reviews.

Soup stalls remain popular throughout the former British colony, retail stores are reduced to few viscous, such as the 110-year-old she Wong Lam.

Inside, more than 100 snakes lie quietly in wooden cabinets labeled "venomous snakes" as shots of an abacus echo through the dimly lit store.

Mak Tai-kong, 84, owner of the shop worked there for 64 years. He sells an average of 100 snakes a week to restaurants and shops of snake soup that might otherwise buy pre-butchered meat, but I prefer the freshness that he offers.

Over the decades, has trained about 20 people to become snake-handlers and said she has some real advice and tried to help the people to put aside their fear of poisonous creatures, including starting on snakes which tusks have been pulled, and so they are no longer dangerous.

"Then, after he has bitten a few times by a snake that is no longer toxic, he thinks, ' Oh, this is not painful, this is nothing, this is like being bitten by an Ant," Mak said.

"Then he will no longer be scared, and as he works the more he will get more used to it."

But new blood is hard to find. The youngest employee of the shop now has been there more than 30 years.

"There will be many. Firstly, is poor and dirty, and the smell of snakes, "Mak said. "Secondly, salaries are high. So many people do not enter the camp. "

Mak feels that his work is less about making money and more on providing a service to society of keeping alive a tradition.

Yet even fellow "Snake King" Chau says has no trained successors and indeed refused to do so.

"I killed snakes for so many years, but didn't really want to. Because there are fewer snakes now, "he said. "But I can not change a career. There is nothing else I can do. "

(Reporting by Wu of Venus; Editing by Elaine Lies and Paul Casciato)

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