{"id":553507,"date":"2026-03-30T03:35:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T03:35:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/553507\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T03:35:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T03:35:07","slug":"student-finds-venomous-snake-in-suitcase-after-returning-home-from-trip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/553507\/","title":{"rendered":"Student finds venomous snake in suitcase after returning home from trip"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>DENVER (WKRC) \u2014 A student from the University of Colorado was surprised to find a stowaway in her suitcase after she returned home from a trip to Costa Rica, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wthr.com\/article\/news\/nation-world\/colorado-student-venomous-snake-suitcase-costa-rica-trip\/507-74c30bcb-c067-409c-9efd-63ae1e43b382\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">per WTHR<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>Jake Kubi\u00e9, a spokesman for Denver Zoo Conservation Alliance, says the snake was a juvenile slender hognose pit viper, a venomous snake native to Central America. The snake was about 2 months old and weighed 18 grams. <\/p>\n<p>The woman called a pest control company to handle the snake, but the company contacted a reptile pet store in Boulder after realizing the reptile wasn&#8217;t native to Colorado. The Denver Zoo and Colorado Parks and Wildlife responded shortly after.<\/p>\n<p>The zoo said the options for the snake were to return it to Costa Rica, rehome it at a qualified research or education facility or euthanize it. Because the Denver Zoo is able to handle venomous snakes and already has four others of that species, it rehomed the snake at its facility. <\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not clear how it got into the woman&#8217;s suitcase, but the zoo says the incident highlights the importance of responsible travel and wildlife awareness, as animals can sometimes stowaway in luggage or cargo, creating dangerous situations. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DENVER (WKRC) \u2014 A student from the University of Colorado was surprised to find a stowaway in her&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553508,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-553507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=553507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}