The international airline passenger going through customs at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport didn’t seem suspicious at first. But an X-ray revealed two red-tailed boa constrictors coiled up inside his hollow-body guitar. The passenger claimed the crawlers must have slithered in while he was suntanning on a beach.
Charles Quick, senior wildlife inspector for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (USFWS) office of law enforcement, was immediately alerted. From his office in a nondescript business park near the airport, he dispatched wildlife inspectors to retrieve the guitar. They brought it back, placed it on the conference room table, clipped off the guitar strings and pulled the snakes out. Today they live at Zoo Atlanta.
