Posted on 09/30/2009 11:08:20 PM PDT by JoeProBono
Giant Rattlesnake Slithers Its Way Into St. Augustine Townhouse Community
ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. -- The trappers who caught and killed a giant rattlesnake in St. Johns County said the snake was 7 feet 3 inches long.
Experts said it's one of the biggest rattlesnakes they've ever seen.
The rattlesnake slithered its way into Tuscany Village, a St. Augustine townhouse community, over the weekend.
Someone spotted the Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake, now being called Rattzilla, near homes off State Road 16 and Interstate 95 and called police.
Police then called Brandon Booth, a professional trapper. Booth said that when he pulled up, he realized how big and dangerous the rattler was.
"When I got there, I looked at it and said, 'That's bigger than 6 feet,'" Booth said. "I didn't have time to really think. I just jumped out of the truck with my gig and got him. He wasn't going to get away."
Booth said he had no choice but to kill the venomous snake because there were lots of people around and a venomous snake that big could easily kill someone.
He said he usually won't kill a snake unless it's venomous.
"I wasn't going to let him get away, so I just went ahead and did what I had to do," Booth said. "There's a lot of kids in that neighborhood and even adults, so I figured it was the best thing to do. I'm not a snake wrestler."
Right now, the snake is sitting in Booth's freezer until he decides what to do with it. The snake was frozen after it was killed and shrunk considerably in size because the muscles were no longer relaxed.
LOL, figures :)
Not ZORITA of 1950s fame in MIAMI! Too fat.
I’ve seen some huge snakes in West Texas, but I’ve never seen one that big....holy cow!
Man, I would order an airstrike on that.
The development is just behind the Belz Outlet Mall at 16 & I-95.
..it's a crowded, congested area.....
...like you said, something scared it out of its habitat.
They don’t look for trouble, they just wander into it. People just need to be aware that they live in Florida and pay attention. I’ll take the snakes over big city gangbangers any day, the snakes aren’t out to get me.
GOOD!!!! That’s the best news I’ve had in a while. Stay in Toto land. Please.
We've had this conversation before and I think we both made it clear, to our mutual relief, that the chances of you coming to Kansas are about the same as my ever coming to Florida.
When I was a teenager someone knocked on our door one night. When I went to see who it was there was a dead six foot rattlesnake lying on our porch. It had been killed back in the coal fields in S.W. Virginia and the boys that had it were showing it off to my Daddy. It had 13 rattles and a button. Pretty darn big snake.
I married one of those boys.
A friend of mine got a diamondback out of a mine shaft in the mouintains above Deming Ner Mexico that was 9’ long anf 6” in diameter.
He had a picture of it over his arms with both the head and tail touvhing the ground.
Neat... :)
The older the rattler is.. the wiser it is. Youth rattlers inject all of their poison because they don’t know how to limit it “per target”. The older ones limit what they inject by what they ‘think’ is what is needed to neutralize their target... but I sure as heck wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of it’s fangs...
The largest I ever killed (strange hobby when I was a teenager back in Texas) was about 5’11”... 17 rattles.
That is a beautiful pic... thanx for sharing!
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