Bai Tuo,?a 25-year-old man in Kunming, capital of Southwest Yunnan province, has been rearing snakes for 10 years and has 25 large pythons in his apartment.[Photo/Chinanews.com]

Two hundred venomous snakes escaped from a snake farm in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province in East China between Aug 26 and 29, according to an official news briefing on Oct 10. So far, 150 of the cobras have been caught or killed, which means 50 are still at large. West China City Daily commented on Thursday:

It was not just one or two non-toxic pet serpents that were loose in the residential areas of the city, but hundreds of highly venomous cobras. Till now no one has been hurt. But people rightly feel scared as 50 are still not accounted for.

Farming snakes in China requires no qualifications and there is no monitoring of snake farms. This lack of supervision and the absence of an emergency early warning system for dangerous snakes that escape from such farms are issues that urgently need to be addressed.

There should be strict regulations covering snake farms, the responsibilities of snake farmers are very clear.

After the snakes escaped in Nanjing, the local government endangered public safety by sitting on the news for nearly two months. Local authorities should have a legal obligation to inform residents when they know dangerous snakes are on the loose.