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Pricey snakehunt

April 10, 2010

A three-week search for a poisonous monocled cobra left the German city of Muelheim 100,000 euros ($133,700) out of pocket. The creature was eventually found dead in the owner's apartment.

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a dea monocled cobra on a sticky strip
A sticky strip sealed the beast's fateImage: picture-alliance/dpa

It only cost the owner 70 euros initially, but a three-week operation involving the fire brigade, scores of builders and removal specialists to retrieve a small, poisonous cobra from a flat in the city of Muelheim, racked up a bill of 100,000 euros, before the creature was found dead in the owner's flat.

Three weeks ago, a monocled cobra, which is only as long as a ruler and as thin as a pencil, but whose poison can kill within a few hours, escaped from its tank.

After the 19-year-old owner called the fire brigade, the block of flats where he lived had to be evacuated and the street cordoned off. The doors and windows of the apartment had to be sealed and the whole place was gutted.

"We had to do everything in our power to find this cobra," Volker Wiebels, a spokesperson for the city council said.

After three weeks of daily, painstaking searches in every nook and cranny, the reptile was finally found in the owner's flat, on a sticky strip that had been laid out to catch the beast.

"It looked dried up, almost as if it was hollow inside," a neighbor said after they found the snake.

Owner must pay his share

The city of Muelheim will have to foot part of the bill, around 40,000 euros, as the incident is classed as a public hazard.

The rest should fall onto the owner, but he is unlikely to be able to pay, as he is currently unemployed.

"The snake may have been cheap, but unfortunately what happened next wasn't," Wiebels said.

ng/dpa/Reuters
Editor: Sonia Phalnikar