Posted on 07/14/2009 9:09:57 AM PDT by dennisw
MIAMI, Florida (NBC) -- Florida is set to declare open season on pythons.
Biologists have officially declared the south Florida python population of more than 150,000 snakes "out of control" and spreading.
The snakes are squeezing out native predators, and that has many worried.
Florida had considered everything from using volunteers to trap them to training beagles to sniff them out.
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Chairman Rodney Barreto wants action.
"We're developing a plan immediately, that we will roll out, that we will allow people who are trained, supervised by us, to go out and hunt pythons and kill them," he said.
The plan would open 750,000 acres of state land to python hunters with permits.
They would be paid a small bounty for each snake.
The problem is state land is closely intertwined with federal land throughout The Everglades, and Everglades National Park where the pythons got their start.
Hunting isn't allowed there, and the borders between state and federal land often aren't marked.
National Park officials vow to use every non-lethal idea to get rid of pythons instead.
These snakes should be eradicated, along with those that keep them as pets:
Police are expected to bring charges against the owner of a pet python that strangled a 2-year-old Florida girl in her crib, killing her.
A Sumter County Sheriffs employee, who is not authorized to speak about the case, told FOXNews.com that charges are coming but wouldn’t elaborate because investigators still are working on the specifics. The charges likely won’t be filed on Thursday.
Shaiunna Hare died early Wednesday morning after being attacked by the snake, which belonged to her mother’s boyfriend and escaped from its aquarium, deputies said.
The little girl was killed by the 8-foot, 5-inch Burmese python as she slept after it got out of its tank in another room of the house, according to Sumter County Sheriffs Lt. Bobby Caruthers.
An autopsy released Thursday determined that the child died by asphyxiation.
The aquarium didn’t have a lock as required by law, Caruthers told FOX News Thursday.
Jaren Ashley Hare, 21, and Shaiunna shared the central Florida home with Hare’s boyfriend, 32-year-old Charles Jason Darnell, and his children.
He does not!!! That was just a vicious rumor started by his reelection committee.
Quote: “The people of Florida and everywhere else should “thank” all the a—holes who think it’s cool to have and sell such exotic “pets”.”
Yeah, and just wait until they think it is cool to have the really dangerous one’s such as the mamba, all breeds of cobra, the fertilance, etc. etc. Honestly, I just do not get what goes on in people’s minds.
Put a $200 bounty on them.
Hokey smokes. Cobras can get up to eighteen feet long, and can lift 1/3rd of their bodies off the ground. That means a big one can look a six foot tall man in the face.
I guess they can pen a sternly worded letter...
Right... because what Florida really needs, more than killing 150,000 free roaming pythons, is caging and feeding 150,000 pythons. Maybe the feds can make 'em all vegan pythons, so they won't have to feed 'em 150,000 rabbits a month (after all, that's not too "non-lethal" for the poor fluffy bunnies).
ROFL
You might want to add that they're good in gumbo.
Over 200,000 of the damn things are shipped to Hong Kong and eaten in soup every year.
We lived in Pensacola about 8 years ago and there was a Python that got loose in the city and ate the neighbors dog. When the police went to investigate, they found the owner of the Python had several Cobras, too. That's all we need around here.
There have been several Pythons found along Highway 98 between Fort Walton and Apalachicola in the last few years. Experts say it gets too cold up here for them to survive, but they keep finding them.
Tastes like chicken?
YES
“Just hire 20 Cajuns and tell them that they’re out of season.”
At the zoos in Louisiana included in the description for each exotic animal is a recipe.
On a somewhat related note,I've lately seen an alarming number of mostly Mexican truck drivers wearing expensive multicolor shirts with a death motif usually featuring a skull.Meanwhile I observe the young white Americans of both sexes displaying lots of dark colored tattoos seemingly Druidic or otherwise disturbing,i.e. intertwined snakes and vines,etc.
Are people just losing their minds?
“Well, you could use an eighteen foot python to make a belt for Barney Frank.”
or maybe a necktie...
Here's a report of a King Cobra in NC and a couple in the Glades [FR], hat tip to GladesGuru
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