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Snake Catchers from India Hunt Pythons in Florida Everglades
NBC Miami ^ | Jan 25, 2017

Posted on 01/25/2017 7:49:51 PM PST by nickcarraway

The tribesmen have removed 13 pythons in just over a week, including a 16-foot-long female

Florida wildlife officials have recruited tribesmen from India in the state's ongoing hunt for Burmese pythons.

Irula tribesmen are well-known in southern India for their snake-catching. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission hopes they'll reveal something that has long eluded researchers: a reliable way to track and spot the tan, splotchy snakes that all but disappear in the Everglades.

One of the commission's exotic species experts, Kristen Sommers, said in a statement Monday that the state hopes the tribesmen can teach people in Florida some of their skills.

The tribesmen have removed 13 pythons in just over a week, including four from the Crocodile Lake National Wildlife Refuge in Key Largo. One of the snakes was a female measuring 16 feet long.

Last year, a state-sanctioned hunt netted 106 pythons in one month.


TOPICS: Local News; Outdoors; Pets/Animals
KEYWORDS: burmesepythons; florida; floriduh; india; python; pythons; snake; snakes; wildlife
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To: Joe 6-pack
Sounds like the l o n g and short of it


21 posted on 01/25/2017 8:35:20 PM PST by Daffynition ( "The New PTSD: Post-Trump Stress Disorder" - The MLN didn't make Trump, so they can't break Trump.)
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To: Squantos

Those were just random photos I found on the net.


22 posted on 01/25/2017 8:35:27 PM PST by ETL (On the road to America's recovery!)
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To: Salvavida
By my math, the "Murica" way is greater than 50% more effective than the Indians To solve the problem, the state needs to get out of the way and sanction the hunting indefinitely until they are all gone. And send the Indians packing.

I can't be the only one that sees this.


From another article I read about this, there are only two Indians who were brought here for their snake catching expertise, and they caught the 13 pythons in a week, as compared to who-knows-how-many people in the state-sanctioned hunt catching 106 in a month. They obviously have some techniques to teach in snake catching - but I doubt we'll ever be rid of pythons in the Everglades again.


23 posted on 01/25/2017 8:39:09 PM PST by AnotherUnixGeek
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To: Joe 6-pack
What da elk? Sorry, posted wrong pic


24 posted on 01/25/2017 8:39:27 PM PST by Daffynition ( "The New PTSD: Post-Trump Stress Disorder" - The MLN didn't make Trump, so they can't break Trump.)
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To: Salamander
Well that certainly throws a wrench in the gears. I guess we don't have any choice then. We'll just have to...

Nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
25 posted on 01/25/2017 8:39:45 PM PST by Garth Tater (What's mine is mine.)
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To: Ditter
How do you sterilize mosquitoes?

With very, very tiny tweezers.
26 posted on 01/25/2017 8:40:49 PM PST by Garth Tater (What's mine is mine.)
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To: ETL

27 posted on 01/25/2017 8:41:38 PM PST by Daffynition ( "The New PTSD: Post-Trump Stress Disorder" - The MLN didn't make Trump, so they can't break Trump.)
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To: Pelham

Oh, how I do so enjoy these “Kill them all!” posts.

Frankly, I would laugh my ass off if people got their wishes and then had to deal with the unintended, horrible consequences of a world without snakes.

Henceforth, to one and all, no longer ping me to these cyber-monuments to stupidity and ignorance.

Feel free to wallow without me, to your hearts’ content.

Y’all can spit in the face of the Creator’s infinite and perfect wisdom, by yourselves.

Thanks in advance.


28 posted on 01/25/2017 8:43:12 PM PST by Salamander (We're pain, we're steel, a plot of knives...)
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To: Salvavida
OK, let me get this straight.

"The tribesmen have removed 13 pythons in just over a week."

"A state-sanctioned hunt netted 106 pythons in one month."

By my math, the "Murica" way is greater than 50% more effective than the Indians To solve the problem, the state needs to get out of the way and sanction the hunting indefinitely until they are all gone. And send the Indians packing.

I can't be the only one that sees this.

I noticed the numbers too and couldn't resist trying the same calculation, but the article doesn't give us enough information to make a direct comparison. For example, how large was the "state-sanctioned hunt"?

29 posted on 01/25/2017 8:43:16 PM PST by Lonely Bull ("When he is being rude or mean it drives people _away_ from his confession and _towards_ yours.")
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To: Salvavida
"The tribesmen have removed 13 pythons in just over a week." "A state-sanctioned hunt netted 106 pythons in one month."

Two indians captured 13 pythons in a week. 600 state sanctioned hunters captured 106 pythons in a month. These indians know a bit about snakes. Bring in a few hundred indians and we would see some good results.

30 posted on 01/25/2017 8:48:58 PM PST by plain talk
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To: plain talk
"Two indians captured 13 pythons in a week. 600 state sanctioned hunters captured 106 pythons in a month. These indians know a bit about snakes. Bring in a few hundred indians and we would see some good results."

Bring in two Cajuns and tell them snake hunting is illegal.

31 posted on 01/25/2017 8:52:30 PM PST by Joe 6-pack (Qui me amat, amat et canem meum.)
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To: Salamander

Sorry. I thought you’d enjoy the article, didn’t think about the posts.


32 posted on 01/25/2017 8:56:05 PM PST by Pelham (the refusal to Deport is defacto Amnesty)
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To: Garth Tater

Of course why didn’t I think of that.


33 posted on 01/25/2017 8:59:17 PM PST by Ditter (God Bless Texas!)
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To: Garth Tater

“Bye-bye baby pythons.”

Yes, except they’ll kill all the native and rare birds before they die out - which would take years and years.


34 posted on 01/25/2017 9:05:50 PM PST by vladimir998 (Apparently I'm still living in your head rent free. At least now it isn't empty.)
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To: Garth Tater

That was mostly a Jurassic Park jest.

It does not happen often enough to influence populations.

Years ago, in the first snake forum I ever joined. [pre-Facebook], someone came on the forum, freaking out, because their sole pet snake had just popped out a little of babies.

If memory serves, it was a Brazilian Rainbow Boa.

Disbelievers accused them of having it in with a male, in the distant past, blaming ‘retained sperm’, which, while possible, was impossible, given that they had the snake since it was a neonate and had no males, anyway.

Eventually, the mom and babies were hauled off to a university, where DNA testing was done, and lo and behold, the snake mom had replicated herself with half a dozen little cloned daughters.

But that it not terribly likely to happen, en masse.

A better method of saving the Everglades would be to crush “big sugar” and the obscene over-development going on.

Photos of the glades from 20 years ago, compared to now are shocking.

[those two things, alone, are actually responsible for “where all the native animals are going”]

Were the glades their original size, this would probably not be an issue, as all the wildlife would not be crammed into a space less than a fourth of its original acreage.

Plus, the unseasonable cold snaps that are now the norm [damn globull warming] is sickening them “naturally” and killing them off, anyway.

No one ever mentions that Florida is rife with a hundred other invasive species, such as Iguanas, various Monitors, parrots of every sort, Chameleons and too many others, to list.

Not to mention the wanton slaughter of native wildlife by non-native predators, such as cats.

It’s much easier to blame “scary, not-cute” things like snakes.

The mentality of this is *so* reminiscent of the classic liberal dog-whistles, it makes me sick to see it, here.

It’s so much easier to emotionally knee-jerk react than to bother with an independent search for the real facts.


35 posted on 01/25/2017 9:09:14 PM PST by Salamander (We're pain, we're steel, a plot of knives...)
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To: Pelham

As if *this* thread would possibly be any different from *every other mention of snakes, ever*?

Same stupid bullshit.

Different day.


36 posted on 01/25/2017 9:11:06 PM PST by Salamander (We're pain, we're steel, a plot of knives...)
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To: vladimir998
Yes, except they’ll kill all the native and rare birds before they die out - which would take years and years.

I assure you that's not a problem, we've got top men working on that problem.
37 posted on 01/25/2017 9:12:36 PM PST by Garth Tater (What's mine is mine.)
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To: vladimir998
Sugar and fancy houses are killing them off faster than any snakes ever could.

The water from the glades is being diverted for sugar plantations and houses.

*That* is what is killing off the native wildlife.

What water that is left, is polluted with deadly chemicals and loaded with nitrogens.

What is not "national park land" is being paved over at a mad rate.

Research it.

38 posted on 01/25/2017 9:19:00 PM PST by Salamander (We're pain, we're steel, a plot of knives...)
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To: Diana in Wisconsin

Awww- snakes are cool creatures- Spiders too- but they’d certainly be a lot cooler IF they were in controlled environments and didn’t scare the fertilizer out of a person tearing down a rock wall (Garder snakes love living in rock walls and foundations) or stepping over a log


39 posted on 01/25/2017 9:20:10 PM PST by Bob434
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To: Ditter

[[How do you sterilize mosquitoes?]]

With very tiny surgical tools


40 posted on 01/25/2017 9:20:49 PM PST by Bob434
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