Jonathan Kieran

… And not in the outback of Australia, dear friends. Oh, no!

I have linked to stories of a very rare series of devastating bites from the venomous and much-feared inland taipan snake that have rocked human lives in the past month alone. Two serious attacks in Australia were astonishing enough for these fairly shy, unassuming serpents, but it appears that the inland taipan seems intent upon making a global splash and entering the reptilian limelight with eerie gusto.

Some brain-trust in South Carolina, of all places, called 911 in the wee hours a few days ago and reported that he had been bitten by a poisonous snake. When authorities and medical personnel arrived on the scene, this envenomated dude was discovered to have in his “collection” a veritable Hall of Fame of deadly exotic snakes—gaboon vipers, fer-de-lance snakes, black mambas, and topping them all off in toxicity, at least one inland taipan. Too bad for him, the taipan was the one that but him.

Hey, it could happen to anyone. Haven’t you found yourself fiddling around with your lethal taipan at 2 in the morning?

Police had to call in wildlife experts to deal with a situation I’m certain drained the blood from their faces and possibly the poo from their chutes. Meth-heads and drunks are run-of-the-mill cases when authorities attempt to deal with troubles on the domestic front, but an entire pantheon of the deadliest reptiles on the globe crawling around somebody’s house in the thick of the night?

Well, police have seen it all, but that had to be a new one for the law enforcement officers of sleepy South Carolina.

The ironic thing (or one of them, at least) is that you will be fined a thousand dollars if you so much as bring a mealy old apple you’ve been eating on the plane with you to customs when entering Australia, accidentally. What a revelation to know that Australians can obviously air-mail neurotoxic and lethal taipan snakes into our nation, to be handled by postal workers, sifted, sorted, and delivered directly to your door!

Ain’t that just like America, though—the all-welcoming dumping ground of the earth. “Give me your tired, your poor, your venomously fanged …” Everyone knows the drill.

Given how invasive species from Burmese pythons to crocodilians to murder hornets to kudzu to lionfish have wreaked havoc on our own ecosystems, it might be a good idea to start following the import policies of the very nations that export animals with enough venom to slay 400 human beings in a single shipment package.

How did the senders label the packages that came to this muttonheaded “hobbyist”? “Handle with care?” or “Handle if you dare”? Don’t large packages from some exotic nations have to pass through customs restrictions and declaration guidelines, anyhow? I pity the government worker who might have to open up a box full of irritable taipan snakes or gaboon vipers.

”Mama’s not coming home from the inspection center, tonight, kids. She opened a package at customs and was bitten by a black mamba.”

At all events, the gent from the Sunny South who collected these creatures and thus put first responders (as well as his own house-cat) in grave danger, is himself fighting to survive on a ventilator according to the latest reports.

I wonder if he has set any of these delightful creatures free to take up residence in the steamy swamplands of the Carolinas, just to see if they “thrive”?

”Mommy … I think there’s a cobra curled up in my Malibu Barbie Beach House!”

It wouldn’t surprise me. Then again, something needs to eat the rats in this country. We sure have a lot of them.

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[ A new novel by Jonathan Kieran is slated for major international release in March 2025 so brace yourselves and think of England. This stuff is built for speed. Stay tuned for more info. ] 

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