When Samara Kahan went on spring break to Costa Rica, she didn’t expect to come back and get jump-scared by a stowaway in her carry-on suitcase.
But one little venomous snake had plans for a spring break trip of its own.
Kahan, a University of Colorado Boulder sophomore, was unpacking her suitcase on Tuesday afternoon at the Pi Beta Phi sorority house when she discovered a slender hognose pit viper that had hitched a ride with her from Costa Rica.
“I was sitting on the floor of my room in my sorority house. I was unpacking my bag, and I had a couple of friends in my room,” Kahan said. “I pick up a shirt — we’re mid-conversation — and I look down and see something in my bag. I jump up immediately, and I scream, ‘There’s a snake in my bag! There’s a snake in my bag!’”
At that point, Kahan and her friends had no idea what type of snake it was or where it came from. They assumed it was dead because it was curled up in a ball and not moving. But one of her friends got closer to it, and the snake lunged at her a little bit. Immediately panicked and terrified, they started calling any and all pest control or animal control numbers they could find online.
“We were extremely terrified,” Kahan said.
The slender hognose pit viper is a venomous snake, native to Costa Rica and other parts of Central America. They are typically non-aggressive but will defend themselves if threatened. They eat lizards, frogs and rodents and typically grow 1 to 2 feet long. These snakes are masters in camouflage, which means people rarely see them in the wild. They live in tropical dry forests, and the females give birth to live young, rather than produce eggs.
While they waited for an expert to show up, Kahan and her friends sat and watched the suitcase for two to three hours. At first, they sat there with the suitcase still open, because they were scared to get too close. But everything they found online told them to keep the snake contained, so they eventually gathered the courage to close the suitcase without zipping it.
Around 5:30 p.m., Bryce Bauman with Best Pest and Wildlife Control arrived. He didn’t want to try to extract it in the house, so he carefully picked up the suitcase and brought it out to the front lawn. He said he could immediately tell it was venomous, given the shape of its head.
“Once I opened up the suitcase in full view of a lot of the sorority members and other pedestrians walking by — it was quite the spectacle — I could tell it didn’t look native,” Bauman said.
Bauman extracted the snake safely and placed it in a containment box. He wanted to contact Colorado Parks and Wildlife for guidance, but by the time he had the reptile, it was past 6 p.m., and the workday was over. He knew he could not release it, but he also didn’t want to take it home. And, the snake needed some care after being locked in a suitcase. It was definitely cold but still alive, Bauman said. So he called Ronald Bohnert Jr., the owner of Boulder’s exotic pet shop Scales ’N Tails.
“(It was a) very interesting day,” Bauman said. “We see a lot of crazy stuff in the wildlife industry, but in my six or seven years of doing this, I have never had to deal with a venomous snake from another country.”
Bohnert agreed to take in the snake at his shop. He placed it in an enclosure with water and kept it warm overnight.
“Being a reptile guy, it was cool to be a part of it all and help the animal find a home in a bad situation,” Bohnert said.
Bohnert has connections with people at the Denver Zoo, who expressed interest in taking the snake. On Wednesday, representatives from Colorado Parks and Wildlife and the Denver Zoo arrived at Bohnert’s shop and completed all the paperwork necessary for the Denver Zoo to take ownership of the snake.
“I’m glad they didn’t just release the snake into the wild,” CPW spokesperson Kara Van Hoose said. “They took steps to make sure it got into proper care.”
Jake Kubié, a spokesperson for the Denver Zoo, said the snake is safely at the zoo now and will be in quarantine for the next six months. It likely won’t be visible to guests for a long time but will probably be on display at some point. The zoo already has four of this type of snake. Kubié said the only options for CPW in this situation are to euthanize the snake, send it back or find a home for it. Given the red tape involved in sending it back, Kubié said, the only feasible option to keep it alive is to come to a place like the Denver Zoo.
“The cool thing about this is that it’s really a rescue story,” Kubié said.
The snake is still too new to have a name, and “it’s tiny,” Kubié said, weighing only 18 grams, or less than 1 ounce. The zoo believes itap a newborn snake, born sometime after the new year, in the past few months.
“We’re very glad that we can provide a nice home for this little snake,” Kubié said.
Now knowing that the snake was venomous, Kahan is extremely grateful the situation worked out the way it did. Kahan got back from Costa Rica on March 19 and stayed in Denver for a few days with a friend. She continued to live out of her suitcase until Tuesday. That meant the snake had to be in her bag for at least six days. It could’ve bitten her at any point, Kahan said, and without treatment, any bite could’ve been fatal. Or, she could’ve gotten stopped by TSA and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, who could’ve thought she was smuggling the reptile. It’s unclear how or why airport officials did not detect the snake.
“It was one of, if not the most, scariest experiences of my life, especially knowing itap a highly venomous snake,” Kahan said. “… This was the craziest experience of my life, and I really hope I never have to go through anything like this again!”
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