African rock pythons add to worries about snakes in Everglades

Sun Sentinel ^ | January 13, 2010 | Andy Reid

[george76]

Fears of a new "super snake" emerging in the Everglades grew this week during a hunt to track South Florida's invasive python population.

A three-day, state-coordinated hunt that started Tuesday so far netted at least five African rock pythons — including one 14-foot-long female — in a targeted area in Miami-Dade County.

Those findings add to concerns that the rock python is a new breeding population in the Everglades ...

In addition, state environmental officials worry that the rock python could breed with the Burmese python, which already has an established foothold in the Everglades. That could lead to a new "super snake,"...

In Africa, the rock python eats everything from goats to crocodiles. There have been cases of the snakes killing children.

"They are bigger and meaner than the Burmese python. … It's not good news,"

South Florida's string of unusually frigid temperatures flushed more of the snakes out of the wild and onto flood control levees

[hinckley buzzard]

Thanks go to all the fag yuppie jerkoffs who weren't satisfied with a small dog for a pet.

[misterrob]

ummmmm, plenty of redneck, hoodie boys and rough cuts liked them too

[DemforBush]

Gonna need an awful big mongoose to handle this critter!

[LibWhacker]

C’mon, we hunted the grizzly to near extinction, the buffalo to near extinction, and before the white man came to America, many other animals to actual extinction. Lookee, y’all just give the rednecks some moonshine and tell ‘em it’s open season on big snakes... Problem solved. Oops, sorry, effective solutions don’t occur to democraps.

[birddog]

The snakes can’t take the cold and are coming out because they do not hibernate or brumate and are looking for warmth.

These snakes can not survive much further north than where they are. And this cold snap is probably going to wipe out most of them. If not by the initial cold, they will end up with respitory infections and die off.

Congress right now is trying to ban 9 species of pythons and boas. As usually they are trying to make the feral snake problem from southern Florida a Federal issue when Florida already has legislation in place to address it.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/python-ban-moves-forward-despite-questionable-science-78949462.html

[BipolarBob]

In the Ozarks we have our own hands full with snake hybrids. We have a rattle-headed-copper-moccasin thet will bite a chunk out of you and smile at you as you lay dyin’.

[Graybeard58]

We have a rattle-headed-copper-moccasin

Is that the one that will clamp onto its own tail, making a hoop out of himself and roll down hill chasing you?

[353FMG]

When I went to Alaska in 1958 I was told of snowsnakes that “would crawl up your a$$ and freeze you to death”. How was I to know that they were BSing me?

[BipolarBob]

No, you’re thinking of the dreaded hoop snake. They really just scare the naive and urban flatlanders. Really all you have to do is sidestep them and stay uphill and they are powerless. I sometimes just grab them up while they’re still hooped and fling them downhill and that’s the last I see of them.

[Stonewall Jackson]

Is that the one that’s coral colored?

[upstanding]

++

[Graybeard58]

I sometimes just grab them up while they’re still hooped and fling them downhill and that’s the last I see of them.

Don't try that with the boomerang snake.

[phredo53]

While the other boys were rolling bicycle rims with their push sticks I rolled hoop snakes with mine. Only advantage they had on me was the rims didn’t get tired.