Budding entrepreneur Cai Yong thought it would be great to hatch and raise up a large group of Cobras to make money off the venom extracted. Maybe he should have thought his business plan through a little more, because residents of his remote Xianling village were not pleased to find snakes everywhere, including the bathroom:

Starting at the beginning of this month, cobras were spotted in outhouse toilets, kitchens, front yards and the mah-jong parlour in the tiny farming village in Qijiang county in Chongqing municipality, south-western China.
'I saw one in the bathroom,'' said Zhang Suli, 47, the wife of a corn and rice farmer. ''I was scared, and I started screaming.''
The Mid-Autumn Festival holiday this week, when Chinese celebrate the season's harvest moon, has not been an auspicious one for the people of Xianling.
First, there was the cobras-gone-wild story, which veered between slapstick and terror. Then an apparent government clampdown followed, in which officials declared that most of the snakes had been captured and all was well, assertions that many locals did not believe.

More than half of the 3000 cobras have been confiscated, some are still loose. While Chinese officials state that, "All is well and there is nothing to see," villagers are still claiming to see the loose snakes.

A few things Cai Yong should have considered: Venom extractions must be done in a controlled environment. Venom removed incorrectly (this includes removals in the field) are not always viable for research; sterile controlled conditions are required. Proper storage of the specimens prevent damage. Not to mention the obvious danger of extracting.

To read the full article, click here. I could find no actual ID on the cobras, so I just used a pic of one of the many we met at Reptile Gardens.