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The bear that recently killed a caretaker in a Cleveland suburb was the latest example of animal violence in a state that has some of the nation's weakest restrictions on exotic pets and among the highest number of injuries and deaths caused by them. The death in Ohio and attacks elsewhere - including the maiming of a Connecticut woman by her friend's pet chimpanzee and a 2-year-old Florida girl squeezed to death by her family's python - highlight that the patchwork of federal, state and local laws on keeping dangerous wild animals at home has holes. After a friend's 200-pound...

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...

Already squeezed by the invasion of the giant Burmese python, Florida now faces what one scientist calls one of the U.S. state's "worst nightmares. Africa's largest snake—the ill-tempered, 20-foot-long (6.1-meter-long) African rock python—is colonizing the U.S. state, new discoveries suggest.

A Southern California family , who lives near Lake Elsinore... The first animal control officer who saw the size of the critter had to call for backup. Two officers then wrangled the 50-pound snake into a truck and took it to a shelter. the Burmese python's presumed owner, a long-distance trucker, contacted the agency. Welsh says the owner entrusted his pet to his brother while he was away and the snake somehow escaped.

A Burmese python, that measured more than 17-feet, was captured and destroyed in Okeechobee County on Thursday. The male snake weighed 207 pounds and measured 26 inches in diameter. The reptile did not have a microchip, which is required for it to be a pet. "The capture of this large python shows us how well these snakes can thrive in the wild and create a dangerous situation after illegal release or escape," said commission chairman Rodney Barreto. "It also illustrates why the FWC is partnering with other agencies to implement python control measures in South Florida. We will continue to...

A three-metre (10-foot) python has killed a student zookeeper who let the snake out of its enclosure in Venezuela while working a night shift at the zoo. Horrified employees at the Caracas zoo discovered the Burmese Python as it tried to swallow its victim's head. "The young man underestimated the animal's instinct,"

So much of England seemed strangely, even eerily familiar. Some of that may have been psychological; one of the reasons I'd come to the island was to see and smell and walk the rolling green hills of the English Midlands where my ancestors lived for who-knows-how-many generations and from which, 400 years ago, one of them gathered his family and crossed the Atlantic for a new life in The New World. Part of it certainly was the sight of so many everyday "American" symbols — Burger King, McDonald's, Starbucks, Pizza Hut, Coke, Pepsi and Marlboro. Even the language was, for...

In addition to everything else to worry about, now comes the Burmese python. The giant snakes are slithering from Florida toward the Bay Area, very slowly to be sure, but inexorably. And they can strangle and eat an entire alligator...

For the second time in two years, a 16-foot python has been found in the wild west of Vero Beach -- this time killed by a large roadside bush mower on a canal bank along 58th Avenue. On Friday, Jesse Parker was mowing for the county along a large canal south of 12th Street and hit what he thought was bricks. "When I backed up, a head popped up. It was huge," ... "It is lucky this happened," Vero Beach Animal Control Officer Bruce Dangerfield said Monday. He said the snake could have grown 25- to 30-feet long. Though pythons...

Scientists in Florida are puzzling over a 13-foot Burmese python that scarfed down a 6-foot alligator before its stomach ruptured. The snake apparently tried to swallow the gator whole -- and then exploded. Scientists stumbled upon the gory remains last week. The species have battled with increasing frequency -- scientists have documented four encounters in the last three years... "Encounters like that are almost never seen in the wild. ... And here we are, it's happened for the fourth time," Mazzotti said. In the other cases, the alligator won or the battle was an apparent draw. "They were probably evenly...

A 14-foot python bit its handler and tried to drag her into its cage during a show at an aquarium, and wouldn't release the woman until a police officer zapped the reptile with a stun gun. Alison Cobianchi, 18, was taking Chloe, a Burmese python, out of her cage for the daily snake presentation Saturday at the Tarpon Springs Aquarium when the snake wrapped itself around her arm and waist. Visitors and aquarium employees kept the nonvenomous snake from pulling Cobianchi into the cage, but couldn't make it release its grip. Police were called to help. "We either had to...

UNIONTOWN, Pa. -- A police officer used a Taser to subdue a python that had wrapped itself around a man's arm and would not let go. Steve Crilly, 47, was feeding a rat to the eight-foot-long albino Burmese python, which belongs to his daughter, when it when it bit his left hand and wrapped tightly around his left arm Wednesday night, Uniontown patrolman Ray Miller said. "The snake was on his arm and was eating his hand," Miller told the Herald-Standard of Uniontown for Friday's editions. Crilly "was very calm, considering there was a good bit of blood," he said....