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PYTHONS ON THE LOOSE : Largest of Florida's pet pests invade Everglades
florida-weekly ^ | August 2, 2007 | ROGER _WILLIAMS

Posted on 08/02/2007 8:26:56 AM PDT by george76

Burmese pythons are particularly popular for about $40 wholesale or just under $100 in a pet store, at about the size of a ruler. You feed a little one mice, and then rats, and then as it continues to grow in size and appetite, you offer up chickens and rabbits, the experts say.

You watch your snakeling graduate in about three years to a length of 10 or 12 feet, or longer. Ultimately it can reach 20 feet, and the heavyweights tip the scales at about 300 pounds, and live to about 25 years. Their defacatory production is renowned.

And while you're raising your young python, plan on accommodating its living needs, which make a teenager's look mild. At first, you can put it in a cage. Then you can put it in a very big cage. And finally, you'd just better give it an entire room, or the guest wing of your home. And if you get tired of feeding it four or five big rabbits at a time, go ahead and provide a small pig (or maybe an unruly child or, well, you get the picture).

Burmese pythons are breeding like rabbits.

Some wildlife biologists estimate their numbers in the park now at about 5,000, most of them wild-born offspring of animals from the pet trade either purposely released or escaped from owners after major storms...

"We had laws to control lions, tigers and poisonous snakes, the class one animals, but we didn't have a category to take care of invasive species - pythons, monitor lizards and iguanas, invasive rats down in the keys - things that are and can be super destructive to Florida's environment," ...

Just how destructive is anybody's guess.

"The devastating effect of the python is probably on the bird populations, young nesting birds,"

(Excerpt) Read more at florida-weekly.com ...


TOPICS: Extended News; News/Current Events; US: Florida
KEYWORDS: animals; burmese; burmesepythons; defactory; defectory; environment; invasion; notdefactory; pests; pythons; shootfirst; snakes; wildlife
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Florida needs a bounty ?

.

1 posted on 08/02/2007 8:26:58 AM PDT by george76
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To: FreeKeys

2 posted on 08/02/2007 8:28:14 AM PDT by george76 (Ward Churchill : Fake Indian, Fake Scholarship, and Fake Art)
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To: george76

At what point do they begin eating illegal border invaders?


3 posted on 08/02/2007 8:28:54 AM PDT by TommyDale (Never forget the Republicans who voted for illegal immigrant amnesty in 2007!)
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To: george76

Call Rush quickly, tell him keep the cat inside.


4 posted on 08/02/2007 8:29:43 AM PDT by IrishMike ( A nation can survive its fools, but cannot survive treason from within.)
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To: george76
"Their defacatory production is renowned."

That's a key characteristic in choosing a pet. No tiny black rice mouse poopie, fer me...
5 posted on 08/02/2007 8:30:13 AM PDT by Hegemony Cricket (You can take the boy out of the country, but you just can't get the smell off his shoes.)
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To: george76

Obviously we didn’t learn from selling baby alligators in the 5-and-10-cent stores in the 50’s.....stupid.....


6 posted on 08/02/2007 8:31:39 AM PDT by NRA1995 (To Congress and Mr. President: This is OUR country, and don't you forget it!)
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To: george76

Burmese pythons....eating the animals American snakes won’t eat....


7 posted on 08/02/2007 8:32:58 AM PDT by NRA1995 (To Congress and Mr. President: This is OUR country, and don't you forget it!)
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To: george76

I don’t really worry about these things down here. i worry about the folks who have poisonous snakes in their trailer. First strong storm that comes through and you have a mating pair of black mamba’s in your garden.


8 posted on 08/02/2007 8:33:42 AM PDT by driftdiver
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To: NRA1995

Well, where are the photos of Kah-niggits carrying coconuts?


9 posted on 08/02/2007 8:34:13 AM PDT by massgopguy (I owe everything to George Bailey)
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To: NRA1995
Tastes like chicken...
Click here for bigger pic.
10 posted on 08/02/2007 8:34:14 AM PDT by evets (beer)
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To: george76

People who keep snakes have a screw loose.


11 posted on 08/02/2007 8:34:33 AM PDT by Fawn (God created Birds and Mice for Cats.)
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To: george76
"Florida needs a bounty ? "

I agree completely, and not a cheap one. Put $100 - $200 a head on them and turn the young yoots loose, it will probably be a whole lot cheaper than what they will pay to do it any other way.

12 posted on 08/02/2007 8:36:15 AM PDT by Abathar (Proudly catching hell for posting without reading the article since 2004)
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To: Joe Brower

13 posted on 08/02/2007 8:37:28 AM PDT by george76 (Ward Churchill : Fake Indian, Fake Scholarship, and Fake Art)
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To: george76

Catch them and release them in the Rio Grande........solves 2 problems at once!........


14 posted on 08/02/2007 8:37:32 AM PDT by Red Badger (No wonder Mexico is so filthy. Everybody who does cleaning jobs is HERE!.......)
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To: massgopguy

15 posted on 08/02/2007 8:38:05 AM PDT by rightinthemiddle (Without the Media, the Left and Islamofacists are Nothing.)
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To: george76

Seven-legged lamb
A seven-legged lamb is pictured on a farm in Methven, New Zealand, on July 31. Veterinarian Steve Williams said he believed a misprint in embryo formation had resulted in the lamb being born polydactyl, with many legs, a condition that occurs once in several million sheep.

16 posted on 08/02/2007 8:38:27 AM PDT by Fawn (God created Birds and Mice for Cats.)
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To: Abathar

no bounty, just a hunting season.
i don’t know about python, but i know rattlesnake is some good eatin.


17 posted on 08/02/2007 8:38:49 AM PDT by absolootezer0 (stop repeat offenders- don't re-elect them!)
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To: IrishMike
Call Rush quickly, tell him keep the cat inside

He's got no worries on West Palm Beach.

I, on the other hand, live 5 miles from the Everglades National Park entrance.

We've got gators, crocks, monitor lizards, pythons, border jumpers, gang bangers and various other vermin that are reproducing uncontrollably.

18 posted on 08/02/2007 8:39:07 AM PDT by cowboyway (My heroes have always been Cowboys)
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To: Fawn

You are exactly right, I’m no psychotherapeutic m.d or nothing, but I agree with you. The same goes for them folks that own pit-bulls, studies show that a screw is loose in their social skill area.

Snake-owners and pit-bull owners. Birds of a feather.


19 posted on 08/02/2007 8:40:28 AM PDT by tupac
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To: george76

30 years ago I ran across a 10’+ dead one someone had killed with a shotgun and left laying across a trail in a South Miami swamp. Scared the cr_p out of me at first sight.


20 posted on 08/02/2007 8:41:35 AM PDT by Rb ver. 2.0 (eHarmony reject)
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