Santa Ana police are asking residents near Main Street and Edinger Avenue to stay alert after reports of a large, highly venomous snake believed to be a Gaboon viper, last spotted in a tree in the area. The snake is estimated at 4 to 5 feet long, and officers are urging anyone who sees it to keep their distance, avoid handling it, and call it in rather than approach.
According to CBS News, the Santa Ana Police Department received the reports and issued a public alert Monday, directing residents to non-emergency dispatch at (714) 834-4211 if they spot the animal. Gaboon vipers are native to Central, East and West Africa and are not found in the wild anywhere in North America, meaning the animal did not arrive on its own. Its coloring — a mix of light and dark brown with pink and purple diamonds and stripes, paired with a broad, leaf-shaped head — is meant to camouflage it among fallen forest leaves an ocean away from Orange County.
Why Any Sighting Means an Illegal Pet Got Loose
Under Title 14, Section 671 of the California Code of Regulations, every member of the viper family, Gaboon vipers included, is classified as a restricted species that cannot be legally imported, transported, or kept as a pet in California without a rare state permit, according to A-Z Animals. That means the species can be kept as a pet with a state permit; the origin of this individual animal is unclear.
Gaboon vipers are heavy-bodied ground dwellers that can weigh 20 pounds or more, relying on their leaf-pattern camouflage to ambush prey on forest floors, per The Indian Express. The Eastern Gaboon viper can grow longer than 6 feet.
The Bite Nobody's ER Is Ready For
If the snake is real and someone is bitten, the medical response gets complicated fast. The SAIMR polyvalent antivenom used for Gaboon viper bites isn't stocked in general hospital emergency rooms. The Los Angeles Zoo houses a Western Gaboon viper; Western Gaboon vipers produce the highest venom yield of any venomous snake species on Earth, per the zoo.
The species also holds the world record for the longest fangs of any venomous snake, up to 2 inches, which fold against the roof of the mouth and unfold to drive venom deep into tissue when the snake strikes. Despite that arsenal, Gaboon vipers have a calm nature and rarely bite humans; bites typically happen when the animal is stepped on before it can get away, and the snake can control whether it injects venom and how much. Still, a hungry Gaboon viper will strike at almost any sideways movement, and the outcome of a strike ranges from no effect at all to rapid death.
Past Bites Show How Bad It Can Get
The danger isn't hypothetical. In March 2022, a North Carolina man bitten by a captive Gaboon viper survived after receiving 44 doses of antivenom sent from Alligator Adventure in South Carolina, the most either of the two helpers had seen a patient require, according to The Independent. In 1928, zoologist Marlin Perkins survived a Gaboon viper bite at a zoo only after three weeks of hospitalization and experimental treatment using North American, cobra, and fer-de-lance serums, since no species-specific antivenom existed yet, per the Missouri Encyclopedia.
Closer to home, a 33-year-old woman in Van Nuys died in 1999 after being bitten in her own home by an illegally kept pet snake identified as a Gaboon viper or hog-nosed sand viper, according to a historical account on Wikipedia. It remains the kind of local precedent that underscores why officials treat any loose exotic viper as an urgent public safety matter rather than a curiosity.
A Second Unusual Snake Sighting in Orange County
The Santa Ana report comes 17 days after another rare venomous snake turned up nearby. On September 11, a yellow-bellied sea snake washed ashore at Crystal Cove State Beach, a case Hoodline previously covered. That animal was a marine species, but together the two incidents have put Orange County residents on unusually high alert for venomous reptiles this month.
For now, Santa Ana police are sticking to the basics: if you see the snake, don't approach it, don't try to handle it, and call the department's non-emergency line so officers can respond. Whether the animal is confirmed as a Gaboon viper, another species, or a case of mistaken identity remains an open question police have not yet resolved.
