Stolen Snakes Are a Tough Sell
Some Steals About 80 Snakes but Has Trouble Selling Them
The Associated Press
http://abcnews.go.com/US/print?id=205111
Oct. 28, 2004 - Call it the return of the snakes. Someone had stolen about 80 snakes from a heated storage shed and hid them in the woods, apparently hoping to sell them. But two people shunned the solicitation and alerted the owner.
Howard Hayes, a recreational reptile breeder working to grow the hobby into a business for his son, reported the snakes had been stolen Tuesday. The 26 ball pythons, 10 red-tail boas and about 45 corn snakes were worth about $2,600, he said.
A young man and woman came to Hayes' home Wednesday saying they had met with some acquaintances who were peddling the potential pets.
"They said the people who took them had them hid out in the woods," Hayes said, adding that the animals could have been injured or died if they had remained in the cold for another night or two. "It's a real relief. It would have set our operation back six m
onths to a year."
Hayes didn't press the couple for the names of the thieves.
"I didn't want to quiz them," Hayes said. "They did a good thing in returning them when they could have just let them rot out in the woods."
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