The 50 members of the "Let Blessings and Wisdom Grow" Buddhist group left Beijing in a nine vehicle convoy last Friday, driving for half a day with their cargo of snakes into the countryside of Hebei province.
Buddhists in China enacted a 'compassionate release' by unleashing hundreds of snakes near a village.
50 members of the "Let Blessings and Wisdom Grow" Buddhist group believed that they were doing the right thing by releasing their cargo of one-thousand snakes in rural Hebei province, but little did they realise that what were actually doing was unleashing a plague of the creatures on a nearby village.
Police officers soon arrived on the scene to impound the group's vehicles but it was too late, villagers were already reporting sightings of snakes in their houses with concerns being raised about the danger the animals posed to some of the more vulnerable members of the community. "There is one girl in our village who has Down's syndrome and her parents are now scared of leaving her by herself in the house," said Li Guohua of the village committee. "I do not mind Buddhists releasing animals, but they should not disturb us."
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