I've also read of cases where airport workers who had to deal with siezed illegal shipments felt sorry for the animals sitting on the tarmac in their crates and released them. In one other case, a man came home from work and found an 11 foot plus king cobra in his garage. Grabbed a shotgun, killed it, called the sheriff and a taxidermist. The snake turned out to have escaped fron a neighbor who had taken it to a vet and had it devenomized. Owner was obviously irate about the situation($900 snake, $500+ surgery), but a venomless cobra is still a cobra, and the shooter was ruled to have been well within his rights. I'd have done the same thing-I like snakes but if a deadly species shows up in my home, especially when the closest antivenom is in a zoo 9 hours away, the snake dies before I get bit-if I can kill it from a safe distance.