Python swallows cat in Florida backyard

Tampa Bay's 10 News ^ | Octobe 10th, 2006 | Associated Press

[Tulsa Ramjet]

Miami Gardens, Florida - Elidia Rodriguez of Miami Gardens had been looking for her year-old Siamese cat for two days when her son pointed out the bulging Burmese python slithering in her backyard.

Experts say that bulge in the 12-foot snake is probably the missing 15-pound cat.

Rodriguez got the cat last year as a post-hurricane gift. She named the cat Frances, after the storm.

The snake was spotted in Rodriguez's backyard yesterday.

Experts with the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue antivenin unit says Frances wouldn't have stood a chance against the larger predator.

The snake was captured and taken to the Sense of Wonder Nature Center at AD Barnes National Park.

Earlier this month, authorities say a 13-foot python burst after it apparently tried to swallow a live, six-foot alligator whole.

[TheSpottedOwl]

That's a bummer : ( My little lynx point almost bought the farm several months ago, courtesy of Pandora, who won't stay in her tank. We're working on getting a more secure cage. She was really never a problem before.

People who buy a snake with no idea on how big the sucker is going to get, and how much the snake needs to eat, should simply call a herpetologist, or the animal shelter. Someone will give it a home.

Someone let a Burmese Python (20ft) loose in Devil's Punchbowl, which is about 4700 ft up. A ranger found the snake half frozen, and the snake sat in the visitor's center with a sign telling people NOT to abandon their snakes, or any other animal.

[sit-rep]

Good analysis... I wish I had total recall when the time is right and have these little tid bits of ammo. I end up running out of bullets just about every debate I get into lol...

[StockAyatollah]

If only we could get the pythons to swallow New Yorker transplants too. Florida real estate would be affordable again and I could drive down the road without seeing 10 stupid Yankee logo stickers on the backs of cars.

[Tulsa Ramjet]

"10 stupid Yankee logo stickers on the backs of cars." Sounds like a plot from a movie....wait! its been done! "The TWO THOUSAND MANIACS of a small town celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Civil War by forcing a handful of Northerners to serve as "guests" for a variety of macabre, blood-crazed fun and games."

[GladesGuru]

" simply call a herpetologist, or the animal shelter. Someone will give it a home. "

Just as with the Humane Society and PETA, it is hardly unknown for such "rescued" snakes to be dumped.

I met just such a dumper in the front of my place in the Everglades. The dumper was dumping off pigmy rattlesnakes, and was all puffed up over the goodness of his deed.

I had to tell him I had a school, that schools and pit vipers were incompatible, and that I had shot all pit vipers on my place.

He gave me the usual Liberal look, shifted his nice new jeep (paid for with his father's money, by the way), left to do his shifty deeds further down the road, and clearly thought I was some sort of baddie for not allowing pit vipers on my land.

Pity!

Moral: Do the unwanted animal, the neighbors in the area where you are contemplating dumping the animal, and the animals already in the contemplated dump area a great favor.

Shoot, or just freeze, the unwanted snake.

[GladesGuru]

" simply call a herpetologist, or the animal shelter. Someone will give it a home. "

Just as with the Humane Society and PETA, it is hardly unknown for such "rescued" snakes to be dumped.

I met just such a dumper in the front of my place in the Everglades. The dumper was dumping off pigmy rattlesnakes, and was all puffed up over the goodness of his deed.

I had to tell him I had a school, that schools and pit vipers were incompatible, and that I had shot all pit vipers on my place.

He gave me the usual Liberal look, shifted his nice new jeep (paid for with his father's money, by the way), left to do his shifty deeds further down the road, and clearly thought I was some sort of baddie for not allowing pit vipers on my land.

Pity!

Moral: Do the unwanted animal, the neighbors in the area where you are contemplating dumping the animal, and the animals already in the contemplated dump area a great favor.

Shoot, or just freeze, the unwanted snake.

[TheSpottedOwl]

Dumping pit vipers??? Are those legal in FL? Are they even indigenous to FL? I'm not one for tattling on people, but did you get his license number and turn him in?

I hope his next stop wasn't a preschool dumpster...

[GladesGuru]

I seem to have inadvertently added unnecessary ambiguity by lapsing into bio-speak. I didn't mean to be difficult.

The term pit viper refers to one of the two basic varieties of poisonous snakes. Pit vipers have two small IR receptors on the front of their head which are used for prey identification, prey tracking, and ultimately, to guide the strike and then find the dead prey animal.

There was also a bozo who had found a coral snake and was releasing it, but that was in another part of Florida. Those are not pit vipers, and I was debating the inclusion of that to the post you wrote about.

Which is why I differentiated the pit vipers - a bad idea, as it really is merely an unnecessary technical description.

The dumper who puts snakes into a garbage dumpster would probably be chargeable with some violation, but not being a lawyer, I couldn't say.

In that case a member of the Urban Miners & Dumpster Divers Union (what used to be called bums) might have a complaint, but I can't see pre-schoolers in the dumpster.

Not that some pre-school programs don't have supervision of the children which is bad enough to make possible a child wandering off. But the pre-school population can't make it into the dumpster because they are among the "altitudinally challenged" (too short).