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2 boys killed after python escapes store in Canada
AP via Drudge ^ | Aug 6, 2013 | Rob Gillies

Posted on 08/06/2013 7:09:05 AM PDT by arthurus

Autopsies will be performed Tuesday on two young boys who were strangled in their sleep by a python that escaped from a pet store in Canada and slithered through a ventilation system into an upstairs apartment.

(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...


TOPICS: Food; Local News; Pets/Animals
KEYWORDS: maul; pitbull; python; snake
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To: laconic
I'll see your "specialist" with an "Florida wildlife officials"

But Florida wildlife officials say African rock pythons pose an even bigger threat to the state and are more dangerous than their Burmese cousins.



and raise you an "a herpetologist"

"This is just one vicious animal," Kenneth Krysko, a herpetologist at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville, said in a 2009 National Geographic article. He said African pythons are "so mean they come out of the egg striking."

No need to search for "hidden pedophiles", IMHO, there are plenty of stupid people who have carelessly caused the accidental deaths of others.

This is just another example...
21 posted on 08/06/2013 8:22:09 AM PDT by RedMonqey ("Gun-free zones" equal "Target-rich environment.")
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To: arthurus
There are videos on youtube of rabbits and rats being fed to “pet” constrictors.That does *not* look like a fun way to go.
22 posted on 08/06/2013 8:28:52 AM PDT by Gay State Conservative (If Obama Had A City It Would Look Like Detroit.)
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To: HerrBlucher
I doubt that a pet store would even have a Python large enough to attack a boy.

Think a snake between 14 and 16 feet long is big enough?(in the article, 4.5 yards)

A quick search of the internet will provide you with plenty of examples of attacks of pythons on small children.

This was not just a (Burmese) python but an African Rock Python, it's more aggressive African cousin.

When I was a boy I used to handle pet store Pythons and Boas, even let them curl around my neck.

You weren't asleep, either....
23 posted on 08/06/2013 8:33:22 AM PDT by RedMonqey ("Gun-free zones" equal "Target-rich environment.")
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To: xzins
Accused of sexual assault with a weapon, sexual assault, assault with a weapon, assault, uttering threats, and pointing a firearm

Interesting......

Was it sexual assault involving a child?
24 posted on 08/06/2013 8:37:11 AM PDT by RedMonqey ("Gun-free zones" equal "Target-rich environment.")
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To: RedMonqey

Here’s a link to Salamander’s screen capture of the Mountie web page:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3051431/posts?page=117#117

It says “female victim”, but it doesn’t give age. That doesn’t mean there can’t be a variety of tastes in one criminal.


25 posted on 08/06/2013 8:43:55 AM PDT by xzins (Retired Army Chaplain and Proud of It! Those who truly support our troops pray for their victory!)
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To: WilliamofCarmichael

The article says it was a big snake that had been in the shop for 10 years. A long python can raise up in the air quite a distance. If the herpetarium was, say, five feet below the ceiling the snake could have reached a vent. In another comment there is a suggestion that the boys should be checked for strangulation marks with a rope pattern.


26 posted on 08/06/2013 8:45:08 AM PDT by arthurus (Read Hazlitt's Economics In One Lesson ONLINE http://steshaw.org/econohttp://www.fee.org/library/det)
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To: RedMonqey
examples of attacks of pythons on small children.

Sure, with the intention of eating them. If those kids have snake bites from the python then the story makes more sense. The autopsy will tell the story. It is extremely unlikely that snake killed those two boys.

27 posted on 08/06/2013 8:49:18 AM PDT by HerrBlucher (Praise to the Lord the Almighty the King of Creation)
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To: xzins

I agree just because the victim was a different sex I wouldn’t rule him out.

Little boys and girls at that age are very similiar built...


28 posted on 08/06/2013 8:50:40 AM PDT by RedMonqey ("Gun-free zones" equal "Target-rich environment.")
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To: arthurus
A 100-pound (45-kilogram) python blamed in the strangling deaths of two Canadian boys apparently escaped from its pet store enclosure, slithered through a ventilation system and fell through the ceiling into the room where the young brothers were sleeping, the shop owner said Tuesday.

As I said on another thread: If a snake weighing 100 pounds comes crashing through the ceiling in the middle of the night, it would make enough noise to wake up everyone in the apartment. That being the case, wouldn't the two boys in the room call out for help? Wouldn't at least one of them have escaped from the snake? Wouldn't any adults in the apartment enter the room to see what was going on? The autopsies should show whether or not the boys sustained internal injuries that would be caused as a result of being crushed by a 100 pound snake. This just doesn't add up.

29 posted on 08/06/2013 8:50:50 AM PDT by GreenHornet
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To: xzins

So this is a 15 footlong snake that escaped downstairs.

How long had it been missing??? When did he last check on it??? When did he last feed it??? How long would it take a snake to travel that distance and why would it go to that location???

Something here is definitely amiss that may require more than just an autopsy.


30 posted on 08/06/2013 8:50:59 AM PDT by Uncle Chip
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To: HerrBlucher

Guess we’ll have to wait for the autopsy.:-)


31 posted on 08/06/2013 8:52:39 AM PDT by RedMonqey ("Gun-free zones" equal "Target-rich environment.")
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To: xzins
re: "Based on what I’ve read, the mother of the dead boys doesn’t have a male presence in her home, and the owner of the snake has no female presence in his home. (In short, the reports doesn’t mention the father of the boys or the mother of the owner’s son.)" - xzins

via National Geographic report which highlights


32 posted on 08/06/2013 8:55:17 AM PDT by wtd
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To: wtd

Poking a hole in the ceiling is really strange to me. So is getting in the ventilation system of the house, and then using that ventilation system to get from the first floor to the second floor and then over the boys room. Then it gets out of the system somehow, and then it pokes a hole in the ceiling.

stretching credulity.


33 posted on 08/06/2013 8:59:02 AM PDT by xzins (Retired Army Chaplain and Proud of It! Those who truly support our troops pray for their victory!)
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To: xzins
I find all people who keep snakes as “pets” have psychological issues ,often dominance or sexual in nature.Someone who gets a kick out of feeding one animal to another ranks right there with cockfighters and pitbull fighters.The snake owners I have met are slightly “creepy” and a high proportion have violent personal histories or tendencies.Not a few have criminal records.

Just for fairness, I'll include keepers of larger or known dangerous mammals and birds so they can be offended too.

Unlike an innocent gun,a dangerous animal can do great harm on its own initiative. In the case of this Canadian tragedy,I hold the adults fully responsible for the deaths of these two children.The mother is culpable for voluntarily keeping her children in a place of known danger. The snake owner is guilty of harboring a very dangerous animal with inadequate safeguards.And that is if the snake isn't being "framed" for a murder committed by their owner.

34 posted on 08/06/2013 9:09:30 AM PDT by hoosierham (Freedom isn't free)
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To: varmintman

Somebody needs to be sued into oblivion....

Let’s start with all purveyors of dangerous exotic animals and their customers,in that order.Pretty good chance you’ll find some other oddities like drug abuse as well.


35 posted on 08/06/2013 9:13:02 AM PDT by hoosierham (Freedom isn't free)
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To: xzins

One possible “glitch” on “our Jean Claude.”

The criminal Jean Claude is from “Shippagan” New Brunswick and I see no direct connection with the pet shop owner in Campbellton.

I don’t know what Canadian demographics are so I don’t know if this is a big differnce or not....


36 posted on 08/06/2013 9:14:41 AM PDT by RedMonqey ("Gun-free zones" equal "Target-rich environment.")
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To: xzins
Poking a hole in the ceiling is really strange to me.

Maybe not.

Considering some pretty shoddy ventilation work I've witnessed, if the snake was able to get out of the vent shaft(possiblity) ceiling panels are not meant to support any weight beyond itself and this was a LARGE snake.

Could easily snap through cheap pressboard or sheetrock.
37 posted on 08/06/2013 9:20:50 AM PDT by RedMonqey ("Gun-free zones" equal "Target-rich environment.")
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To: GreenHornet

There it is. There had to have been a lot of noise to wake the store owner and his son if things when as has been reported. Hard to believe that neither boy was yelling when the ceiling fell in or when the snake crawled up in bed with them. How the heck did the snake get into the vent in the first place. My vents have small half inch slits which is far too small for much of anything larger than a spider to get through. Then he would have to get out of the vent system and onto the ceiling. I can see it if the snake was in the walls and made it to the ceiling which, if made of tiles, fell in with his weight landing on the boys but add the vent and no sound to the equation, then no possible way. Something else happened to those boys and the snake is the patsy.


38 posted on 08/06/2013 9:30:09 AM PDT by bgill (This reply was mined before it was posted.)
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To: arthurus

I don’t believe this story....and to complicate matters,with some people’s irrational hatred of snakes, they’ll think it’s totally believable.


39 posted on 08/06/2013 10:02:14 AM PDT by pallmallman (Q)
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To: arthurus; xzins; WilliamofCarmichael; GreenHornet; Uncle Chip; RedMonqey; bgill
Assuming that the basic line is true that the snake escaped from the downstairs store area and made its way up to the upper apartment through the ventilation system, here are a few observations. The type of ventilation system used in this town is likely an oil fired furnace (no natural gas in eastern Canada) which although not relevant, might also have a cooling coil in it for air conditioning. The furnace is likely located in the basement and services the whole building (frankly, if a pet store is in the bottom and an apartment above, there should be two isolated systems for several obvious reasons but the building was very likely built a long time before the pet store was located there). All furnaces have both cold air return as well as the supply side air ducting….and if there was a cold air or supply air ducting grill that was not attached somewhere and a snake got inside the system, it could travel just about anywhere in the ducting except through the furnace itself. It would seem that the cold air return is a much likelier candidate for the snake to have gotten into in order for this to have happened for the following reasons….usually the grill covers are on the side of interior walls as opposed to being on the floor (at least for the first floor) and typically no ducting is used for the air movement…. just the cavity in the wall between the wall studs act as the ducting. Often the grills are installed in a haphazard way with screws that don’t even go into studs… just the drywall. It is thus not uncommon to see return air grills just standing in their location without anything really securing them in place except the friction of the baseboards on both sides. The supply air side will be a rectangular metal duct and obviously for the second storey, it has to travel up through the first floor to the second floor. Once it gets there, 3” or 4” branches take the air to the grills in the individual rooms and those small ducts will obviously be located between the ceiling joists (a larger duct may be used if several rooms are being supplied in which case the ducts that lead to the air supply diffusers will just tap into that bigger duct). For the 3” or 4” ducts, light sheet metal will likely be used as the flexible type didn’t exist when installed based on how old the building looks. As noted, the cold air return is the likelier candidate for a snake to access the system but articles on this have stated that the snake came from above and this might imply it got into the supply air duct…..unless for the second storey, they reversed the conventional direction and supplied the air to floor diffusers and installed the return on the ceiling (there is some logic to having the air travel in this direction and it is not uncommon to do it that way). Regardless, if it was return air between the ceiling joists of the second storey and it came across a poorly installed grill (with screws into drywall), the weight of the snake alone would have easily knocked the grill down…. particularly since this is a flat roofed building, moisture could have gotten in at some point and weakened the drywall or tiles could have been used that support virtually no weight at all. As for a ‘crashing noise’ I disagree and can see how this could have happened almost silently. The grill could have dropped down on to a mattress, drywall and ceiling tiles don’t make much of a noise when it breaks apart (assuming that’s what happened) and a long snake dropping down through the hole on to a mattress and blankets would have been almost silent outside the bedroom.

As for how the snake got out of its cage, that’s another story. Is it known for sure that this is supposedly what happened? Is it possible that the cage itself had an air return or supply located right in it?

40 posted on 08/06/2013 10:38:28 AM PDT by hecticskeptic
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