“I made a mistake,” says Tik Tok-the famous owner of the escaped deadly cobra.

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Raleigh Police Station

Raleigh Police Station

Allowing very dangerous snakes to escape from your home is one thing. Not reporting it for months is completely different, as it was spinning around the residential area.

TikTok-Famous snake handler Chris Gifford, 22, seeks forgiveness in the wake of last summer’s horror of snakes. Raleigh, North Carolina. Residents were frightened after authorities warned that Zebra Cobra, a deadly species known for poisoning used to blind prey, was found in loose areas, but was not found for several days. did.

Gifford had previously pleaded guilty to court. Snake I got out of the enclosure in November 2020. “I was young and scared,” Gifford said in an interview. WRALExplain why he didn’t act immediately. “I’m still young and afraid of the whole situation.”

Police said the TikTok Snake Star escape pet cobra was loose “months” in North Carolina.

Social media star with over 500,000 followers Ticktaku— In November 2020, I bought two African zebra cobras and added them to his snake collection. He kept them in separate enclosures with standard quarantine procedures to prevent new additions that could spread the disease to other snakes. But when he checked them the day after they arrived at his house, one was gone.

He realized that the container wasn’t properly latched and soon began looking for the missing reptile in his parents’ basement. Gifford wanted the snakes to still be there, due to the safety measures he took. I found that there was a pen-sized hole in the wall, which led to a drywall and crawling space under the house. Believing that Zebra Cobra must have been trapped, Gifford was convinced that his parents and himself didn’t need to inform anyone about the breakout. Weeks have passed without any signs of snakes. But even if it did, the frosty January nights and snowfall in North Carolina would certainly mean that African snakes couldn’t survive?

Wrong.

In June 2021, a park ranger visited Gifford’s house. He thought it was a regular visit to check out his collection of snakes after searching his house until one of the policemen pulled a photo of a spitting cobra on her phone. .. “She goes,’This was found in about three streets.’ She asked me,’Is this snake yours?'” Gifford said. In a panic, Gifford lied and said it wasn’t his.

After she left home, he told the local press that he had a conscience and called on police to clean up. Gifford was eventually ordered to hand over his $ 35,000 collection of snakes to the county, paying more than $ 13,000 in compensation for police and EMS searches for snakes. Gifford also promised not to own a snake for at least a year. The city of Raleigh has even introduced a new dangerous animal ordinance designed to stop people who own snakes like Gifford in the wake of a panic.

Gifford now feels the seriousness of his negligence. “It was on the woman’s pouch,” he said, talking about where the snake was finally caught in the glue trap. “Imagine a little child or something of that nature happening.” He also explained his motive for speaking now: “In most cases this is just an apology because there is no excuse for what happened.”

For more information, see The Daily Beast.

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