Andrew Grossman has an article in
The Wall Street Journal about the thought-to-be-missing cobra:
It was the talk of New York: an adolescent Egyptian cobra that slithered out of its cage at the Bronx Zoo last week and, as if it weren't enough to strike terror into the city's hearts, started tweeting.
After searching for four days, zookeepers found the snake coiled in a dark corner during a sweep of the reptile house, which has been closed to visitors since it went missing a week ago.
"The key strategy here in recovering this snake was patience," zoo director Jim Breheny said at a news conference. Zoo officials had been conducting thrice-daily searches of the building and tried to lure the venomous cobra out by scattering mouse- and rat-scented wood shavings.
The idea of a cobra on the loose in New York, home of the mythic sewer alligator, sent the city's imagination racing. Someone even launched a Twitter feed in the snake's name that quickly garnered 200,000 followers: "If you see a bag of peanuts inexplicably moving along the ground at Yankee Stadium today, just ignore it. It's probably nothing," read the serpent's Twitter feed Thursday, opening day for the New York Yankees.
Zookeepers never thought the cobra posed a danger; snakes are cold-blooded and wouldn't survive long outdoors in an especially-chilly spring.
The cobra, which has been at the zoo only since February, doesn't have a name. But it had been given a Twitter handle: @BronxZoosCobra.
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