1992 -- Albuquerque, N.M., sheriff's deputies, arriving to evict Rick "Reptile" Little, 30, from his home in a rent dispute in June, encountered 140 snakes being housed (at least 40 of them venomous), along with owls, toads, rabbits, salamanders, moles, lizards, turtles, tarantulas, scorpions, dogs, cats and fish. Not surprisingly, the stench, said deputies, was unbearable.
1992 -- Snake-handling expert Larry Moor died very quickly in July after being bitten by an Egyptian cobra in Vancouver, Canada. He had staged classes and started an organization to teach the public that they have nothing to fear from poisonous snakes. However, he had often said that only two snakes are really dangerous and that the Egyptian cobra is one of them.
1995 -- In December, U.S. Customs agents in Miami found 200 baby tarantulas, 300 thumb-sized frogs, and several sacks of tarantula eggs in luggage belonging to Venezuelan Manuel Frade. Agents opened his luggage after they found 14 baby boa constrictors in bags tucked in his trouser legs. In January, customs officials in Stockholm, Sweden, found 65 baby grass snakes concealed by a 42-year-old woman in her brassiere, and six lizards elsewhere in her blouse.
1996 -- In May, Valentin Grimaldo, 40, who was bitten by a poisonous coral snake near Encino, Texas, survived by biting the snake's head off, slitting its body lengthwise, and using the skin for a tourniquet until help arrived.
1994 -- New York City police investigating a burglary at a debt collection agency in Queens happened upon a plastic case that contained 62 live Western diamondback rattlesnakes. Police said the three men who run the agency create souped-up vodka at $100 a pint to sell to Koreans in the neighborhood (floating snakes in the vodka to supply enhanced power).
1992 -- After police pulled over Kevin Temple, 35, in a routine traffic stop in Bronson, Fla., in October, a police dog sniffing the trunk became agitated. In the trunk and backseat, officers found the following live animals: 48 rattlesnakes, a Gila monster; 45 non-poisonous snakes, 67 scorpions, several tarantulas and small lizards, and a parrot. Temple said they were just pets.
1996 -- In August, the parents of Alexandra Taylor, 5, received an undisclosed settlement from Continental Airlines because the airline permitted another customer to bring a 6-foot-long python into the cabin of a 1994 flight, which allegedly caused Alexandra to have severe nightmares. The snake's owner had brought along her companion as a "support snake" prescribed by her therapist to help her overcome the trauma of being sexually harassed by a professor.
1997 -- In January in an experiment to exercise better crowd control over opposition-party demonstrations in Jakarta, Indonesia, the local police chief put seven cobras in a glass case in front of the main police station and said they would be used to intimidate protesters. He said police would wave the cobras at the crowd, but it was not clear whether officers relished handling the snakes in the first place or that such crowds would allow the officers to get close enough for the snakes to strike.
1995 -- In December, U.S. Customs agents in Miami found 200 baby tarantulas, 300 thumb-sized frogs, and several sacks of tarantula eggs in luggage belonging to Venezuelan Manuel Frade. Agents opened his luggage after they found 14 baby boa constrictors in bags tucked in his trouser legs. In January, customs officials in Stockholm, Sweden, found 65 baby grass snakes concealed by a 42-year-old woman in her brassiere, and six lizards elsewhere in her blouse.
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