First choice, I would call animal control and leave the box well enough alone.

If I had to dispose of it. I would place the box into a sealed airtight bag/box along with a few rags soaked in paint thinner for some hours or place it into a freezer overnight. Fumigate 'em or freeze 'em out!

Sorry, all you venomous animal lovers. I don't mess with poisonous critters. I kill 'em quick and from a healthy distance! That's why I can't understand people who own tarantulas, scorpions, or venomous snakes as pets. The proper place for creatures like these is a zoo or wildlife refuge, not in the hands of amateurs with substandard safety measures!

I knew a joker who owned a spider once. He thought it was cute putting it on people! I warned him once that if I ever found his spider on my person, it would shortly become a greasy spot of goop on his rug! He never tested my resolve.

Timber, you might be right on that, but my entire life, no snake has ever tried to bite me, I used to catch baby cotton mouths by their tails, my mom of course always killed them, but I also understand they are deadly, and I was still young then, the last snake I caught, the timber rattler, was due more to find out what it was, and I caught it in the jar with a stick, and no, I have not seen anyone bit by them.
as for killing them, I disapprove with it, my reasons are simple, 1. with out the captured snakes, we could not make anti-venom, 2. they do help keep down rodents, and 3. if you kill all of them, it is disrupting the food chain, and can cause more damage in the long run ;)

I would never have opened the box, who wants to deal with a pissed off snake that's been in a box for who knows how long eh?

Personally I think snakes should just be left in the woods, I mean does anyone think that snakes like to be pets, taken away from their environment for human amusement? Doubt it. I feel the same for fish, and I still have two left in a 50 gallon tank. I keep them because I do not know anyone that could take them and take good care of them. I like them, have had them for 10 years now, but I bet they would have rather lived their 10 year life back in Lake Malawi in Africa (where they come from).

I dunno, I have I guess split feelings when it comes to certain pets. Is it right, is it wrong to have them? I feel now that it is, yet I still am a guilty party (with my fish). But it's not like I can send my fish back to Africa, so nothing for me to do but continue to take care of them. But then I think, what if one of my two fish died, I'd then feel sorry for the lonely one, and be tempted to get it a friend, I'd tell myself that the fish are already in pet store tanks, no going back, at least I can give it a good home and take good care of it, but then I'm also buying into the whole fish "market" if you will, blah. dunno. *shrug* ?

Hiya Stormy. Long time no see...

For me, I'll approach the box, read the inscription on the box, decide to leave the box alone, but curiosity got the better of me. I mean what if the things inside is not the thing that is describe on the box, there could be valueable treasure inside. So I go to the box, open it and shout " ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!! " when I saw the reptiles. Quickly run away cursing the owner of the box, plus cursing myself for my stupid curiosity, plus cursing every gods out there for not foretelling me what's inside and not stopping me from opening the box. Plus I also swear I never open any box that's not belong to me anymore. Yeah right..... :D

rofl, yeah, I imagine that is what most of us would do, no matter what we say ;) I remember a couple of years ago, right after the 9/11 thing, I was working at a gas station, and some guys who delivered the beer found a box wrapped in wrapping paper, it was a few weeks before christmas, sitting out buy the trash can, they brought it in to the store and opened it, I was telling them they were fools to open it, but then when I saqw what was inside, I kept it ;) turned out to be a childs computer, the perfect gift for my son :D
LadyZ, I have to agree with you a little bit, but also am just as guilty about the fish, I used to have some tetras and a beta that I kept, the tetras wound up freezing during a icestorm, lost all the power, but saved the beta cuz we went to a hotel that had a generator back up, my husband would not let me bring all the fish, there was no way we could have carried both tanks, and if I had of put them together, the beta would have eaten the tetras :/

Being me, I would have opened it...probably because i would have been curious as to what was in it, and if the writing "Venomous Reptiles" was written there as a hoax.
If I were to have opened it, I wouldn't have opened it fully, I would only have lifted the lid a little so i could see what was in there, but not let what was in there leap out at me.