Snakes on a Plane

I Brought a Puff Adder to My Dorm—and Uncovered a Lie in Conservation

Some students sneak alcohol into their college dorms.

I brought home a puff adder.

It was during fieldwork in South Africa, tracking kudu and elephant behavior for a conservation study, that I made a decision I still think about today.

Puff adder on a lonely South African stretch of tarmac.

At first glance, he looked like discarded tire tread, a coil of something unremarkable baking in the heat. But up close, his body was thick, muscular, and low to the ground—built not for speed but for authority. Earth-colored, heavy-headed, his eyes half-lidded in the way of a creature that doesn’t need to warn you.

The puff adder is Africa’s most dangerous snake—not because of its venom strength, but because it bites more people than any other species on the continent. It’s also one of the most exploited snakes in the exotic pet trade: quiet, camouflaged, easy to catch, and too often smuggled across borders in duffel bags and Tupperware.

But this one wasn’t defensive. No coiling, no puffing, no hiss. Just a heat-weary stillness that made me worry something was wrong. So, with the flawless logic of a twenty-something grad student unsupervised in the wild, I gently guided him into our lunch cooler.

And brought him back to my dorm.

For three days, he lived in that blue Coleman under my desk at the international student housing block. While in classroom my classmates highlighted textbooks and argued over statistical significance, I typed out population models beside one of the continent’s most notorious snakes. He even came with me to class. Sat there, quietly. Never once judged my math.

A blue dorm cooler held more than snacks. For three days, Africa’s most dangerous snake lived under my desk—while I typed field reports and trusted the wrong people.

When it came time to rehome him, I handed him off to Ian—a fellow grad student, herpetologist, and one of the more magnetic field minds I’d ever met. Ian had connections. He said he knew someone who did wildlife rehabilitation and could take the snake in properly.

I believed him.

We’d spent countless hours together in dry riverbeds flipping rocks for scorpions, debating conservation policy under the stars. Ian was the kind of field guy who made you believe this work was still noble.

Then, a few days later, over beers, he told me the truth.

He was trafficking exotic wildlife—live reptiles smuggled from Indonesia, destined for private collectors. No permits. No conservation value. Just illegal wildlife trade, wrapped in the language of field research.

He said it casually—like it was nothing. Like we hadn’t stood in the same bush veldt weeks before, talking about ecosystems and extinction and what kind of legacy we wanted to leave behind.

I didn’t argue. I just sat there and let the world tip.

That was the moment the blindfold slipped.

It wasn’t just Ian. If someone like him could be casually running animals through customs while talking conservation by day, then how many others?

That puff adder had been the real deal. But the idea that we were all on the same side? That was the true illusion.

Turns out the most dangerous snakes don’t always hiss. Some of them smile. Want to know how organized crime and wildlife trafficking intersect?

👉 Read next: Wildlife Trafficking and Organized Crime: How a Hidden Global Web Touches American Lives