Of course the state has inspected our facility. Our display cages are molded of a single piece of poured material, usually concrete, and it was obvious on inspection that there is no way out. I have responded to hundreds of emergency snake calls, many of which were initiated by police officers, people who are supposed to be able to observe and report factually even in "scary" situations. Snakes are consistently reported as "six foot long rattlesnakes". Sadly they always shrink to 2' or 3' and change their species by the time I arrive on the scene. I wish that I could actually catch the six foot long rattlesnakes that keep getting reported by terrified homeowners, but unfortunately it is pretty well inevitable that any report from a non-herpetologist involving snake length is not going to be accurate. Please feel free to verify this with anyone who does nuisance wildlife removal. Snakes are *always* six feet long when reported by scared people. If the snake the lady saw was six feet long and robust, it was neither our green mamba nor the green snake. The sole specimen of Eastern green mamba we have on exhibit is juvenile male who weighed about 200 grams on his last vet exam. He is nowhere near six feet long, and he's quite a slender little boy. The rough green was decently well grown for its species, but they don't get six feet long either. I was working in the back at the time of the incident. I had just finished vet care rounds and was on my way out. When the green snake was brought to me in the back, my first thought was concern for the frightened animal, and my second thought was that it was funny and sad at the same time that such gentle and delicate little creatures were hated and feared so much that they were seen as six foot long giants with fangs dripping venom. So many harmless snakes are brutally killed by people who feel that way that my sympathy is entirely on the snakes' side. A quick exam showed that the animal was in good body condition and not sick or injured, so I put it back in the wild where it belonged. Had I known that people were that terribly upset, I would have first pushed through the crowds to find the people in question and asked them to hold up a tape measure to the snake so they could see how big a "six foot long snake" really is when it is in the hands of a competent herpetologist and not in the eyes of a terrified ophidiphobe. However my job is animal care, and there was a stressed and frightened animal in my hands who needed my help to get back home. I did my job and cared for the animal's need first. It is unfortunately very much routine that people dump wild snakes at the Serpentarium whether we want them or not, though usually they have the courtesy of leaving them in a bag or a box. We refuse them and ask that they be put back in the wild where they belong, but some people decide to leave them anyway. Zoo Atlanta calls these "back-door donations". Ask any curator at any zoo in the world and they will tell you the same thing - kids (and adults who should know better) constantly bring in wild snakes with the idea that the zoo wants them. Sometimes they don't even bother asking first, or they don't respect it when they are told that the snakes need to be left alone in the wild. Packages get left and we have to deal with them as best we can. What I was guilty of is just not taking the situation terribly seriously. When you have a delicate little green snake in your hands that you were told that people were mistaking for a six foot Eastern green mamba, when you don't even HAVE a six foot Eastern green mamba, I'm afraid it's mostly rather funny. At this point I regret not keeping the evidence, but my concern at the time was for the comfort and welfare of the snake, not the fears of people who kill the poor little things for no worse crime than being "scary". I wish I had taken the educational opportunity.