The Snake
Posted on 07/12/2014 6:47:51 AM PDT by njslim
A new danger has been lurking in the waters of the largest lake in New Jersey, in the form of a potentially dangerous snake. As CBS 2’s Tracee Carrasco reported, a boa constrictor that could be up to 20 feet long is on the loose around Lake Hopatcong, and neighbors have been worried.
Plenty of other cold blooded snakes and animals survive the Winter in Northern states. Also, if you believe that this particular snake could not do so, then we would have to assume that someone dropped a 20 foot snake into the lake just this Spring. As unlikely as this whole story seems, that seems even more improbable.
Yes, cold blooded snakes do survive in the northeast, because they are able to hibernate. Giant tropical snakes don't do that.
I have kept many pet snakes over the past five decades, including boas and ball pythons. Anyone who has ever kept a tropical snake as a pet knows that keeping their environments warm enough is a critical aspect of their care. In all cases, that minimum temperature is 75 degrees.
Moreover, it is completely plausible that someone dropped a 20 foot snake into an area near the lake, and probably fairly recently given the average temperatures in the Northeast through this past April.
Many (stupid) people keep large snakes and then decide to release them in the wild when they get too big and too expensive to maintain. Or possibly, it escaped.
It is absolutely impossible that a large constrictor survived this past Northeastern winter (or any other winter) in the wild.
Just post a recipe for chicken fried snake and me ‘n Bubba’ll be right up there.
I have heard people express concerns this could happen I haven't heard anything like that. The pythons are in the everglades and would have a long ways to go
yes but they would do pretty good in the swamps of Louisiana. But that is a long ways from the everglades
“Snakes are cold-blood animals, which means they can’t make their own body heat and thus their body temperature is determined by the surrounding air temperature.”
Darwinian adaptation. Scientists have proven that from one celled animals to humans took only a billion years, so cold blooded to warm blooded should have taken no more than ,what, 10-12 months?
I suspect you are right, based on the winter weather map I posted in support of my assertions.
This snake has not been positively ID’d.So know one knows what type it is. Seems everyone is assuming its a Boa from some nit wits un professional observation.
potentially dangerous
CBS 2’s Tracee Carrasco(Snake expert,nope)
animal control officers believe the 15- to 20-foot-long boa constrictor is in the water,(Snake expert,nope)
They’ll never make it past South Louisiana, the land of, “you kin eat that!” If there’s no season and no limits they’ll be wiped out.
True. But if it is anywhere near 20 feet, it is not a boa constrictor (which is what the article calls it), although it is certainly a tropical species.
In my world there is no snake that does not deserve a good killing.
Also,Its probably not 20 feet
I have snakes here in the stone walls and they keep the chipmunks,ground squirrels and other rodent populations down.We don’t kill them.
Ya being very kind there :)
Most snakes are harmless. My friend Henry is a rat snake. He keeps the rodents under control in my barns and keeps other snakes away. Every year I anxiously await the first Henry sighting. I feel much better once I see him, knowing the rattlers won’t be around.
Actually, it depends, we have Freddie who lives in the barn and keeps the rats at bay. He lives there rent free. It’s the cotton mouth that gets up on the seat of the dozer when it gets stuck in the mud that I want dead.
This here is Florida.
20 foot boa?
ho hum.
The Snake
In my world they are all deadly poisonous and deserve to die.
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