parks

Woman Releases Cobras Into Shenzhen Park, Gets Eviscerated Online

Posted: 08/13/2014 8:00 am

The release of a number of poisonous snakes by a Shenzhen woman has incurred the wrath of a number of netizens.

The woman in question posted nine pictures to her Weibo account (@郎卡卓玛) back on July 14, reports the Nandu. One of the photographs show her releasing rattlesnakes and cobras into what many netizens suspected to be a public park. The text accompanying the photo reads:

You should praise us beautiful girls and handsome boys for releasing these live snakes. The poisonous ones were all released by her. Such bravery [thumbsup.emo]

Almost a month later, the unidentified woman’s Weibo account has become very busy as a wave of netizens have come to criticize her. Yesterday at around 4pm, her posts had been forwarded some 7000 times as the outrage against her grew. Some Weibo verified users even got involved by saying that the release of poisonous snakes is a public issue.

However, the precise location of where the photographs were taken have not been verified, fueling netizen speculation. Furthermore, requests for an interview with a reporter have gone unanswered, leaving any facts to this story unconfirmed, such as whether the woman is an animal rights activist or simply someone with a grudge.

Following the outcry from netizens, the woman tried to delete her Weibo account. Later, she tried to change her name, and then later still the woman made a statement in which she apologized for her actions:

Today I have made everyone very annoyed because of myself, to which I want to express how sorry I am to all of you! However, I didn’t release poisonous snakes into a public park as everyone claims; instead, we released these animals back into the natural world. All living things are equal. These animals come from nature, and so we have let these animals go back to nature! The deletion of Weibo content was to disallow the pointless attacks that kept being made. We treat Weibo as a diary, and so with that we invite everyone to stop their speculation.

Shenzhen Police and Shenzhen Public Parks are investigating.

Southern China is home to 35 types of snakes that are venomous. These include the Chinese cobra, the king cobra, Fea’s viper, and Russell’s viper.

Annual records of snake bite fatalities in China range from 450 to over 4,000, an amount that is dwarfed by snake bite fatalities in India, Bangladesh and some African countries.

Snake bites most commonly occur in rural farming communities where workers use manual agricultural tools and walk barefoot. Unfortunately, these are also communities where access to healthcare is often limited.