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Everglades swamped with invading pythons
news.yahoo. ^ | May 29, | Jim Loney

Posted on 05/30/2009 4:15:21 PM PDT by JoeProBono

The population of Burmese pythons in Florida's Everglades may have grown to as many as 150,000 as the non-native snakes make a home and breed in the fragile wetlands, officials said on Thursday. Wildlife biologists say the troublesome invaders -- dumped in the Everglades by pet owners who no longer want them -- have become a pest and pose a significant threat to endangered species like the wood stork and Key Largo woodrat. "They eat things that we care about," said Skip Snow, an Everglades National Park biologist, as he showed a captured, 15-foot (4.6-meter) Burmese python to U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who was on his first fact-finding mission to the Everglades since the Obama administration took office.

With Snow maintaining a strong grip on its head, the massive snake hissed angrily at Salazar and the other federal officials who gathered around it at a recreation area off Alligator Alley in the vast saw grass prairie. It took two other snake wranglers to control the python's body. "A snake this size could eat a small deer or a bobcat without too much trouble," Snow told Salazar before the secretary boarded an airboat for a tour of the Everglades.

(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...


TOPICS: Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: everglades; florida; python; snake
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To: shibumi

I will watch The Seventh Victim if netflix has it..
Watch “Tell no one” you might surprised..


61 posted on 05/30/2009 8:10:52 PM PDT by GSP.FAN
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To: bert

I used to live in Florida, but it’s been awhile.
But, didn’t hunters used to hunt gators at night with guns in the glades (before gators became protected)?


62 posted on 05/30/2009 9:32:35 PM PDT by LouAvul
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To: LouAvul

.......didn’t hunters used to hunt gators at night with guns...

I guess that might have been the case, but we are not talking about hunting gators, we are talking about pythons. I guess they can swim but are mostly terrestrial. Trying to hunt them down in the very thick vegetation is lots more difficult than shining out the eyes of a gator from a boat.

By the way, I’m not sure they are protected any more. Along the Tamiami trail the Everglades are on the south side and the Big Cypress Nature Preserve is on the north side. There are tons of alligators all along there in the canals and connecting streams. Part is grass marsh and part is heavy and I mean tropical heavy tree and shrub growth.


63 posted on 05/31/2009 4:35:07 AM PDT by bert (K.E. N.P. +12 . Crucify ! Crucify ! Crucify him!!)
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To: SWAMPSNIPER

YOu and me both!where I live we have crocodiles and gators.


64 posted on 05/31/2009 5:08:51 AM PDT by rodguy911 (HOME OF THE FREE BECAUSE OF THE BRAVE--GO SARAHCUDA !!)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

They take everything they have and then throw them to the gators.


65 posted on 05/31/2009 5:09:37 AM PDT by rodguy911 (HOME OF THE FREE BECAUSE OF THE BRAVE--GO SARAHCUDA !!)
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