Attention Floridians - Python Challenge 2013 Is Here - Get Your Machetes And Nets And Go Forth!

[hatrack]

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - A python hunting competition starting on Saturday is drawing hundreds of amateurs armed with clubs, machetes and guns to the Florida Everglades, where captured Burmese pythons have exceeded the length of minivans and weighed as much as grown men. Python Challenge 2013, a month-long event sponsored by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, is open to hunters and non-hunters alike.

But the idea of luring weapon-wielding amateurs into the harsh environment of the Everglades has raised some alarms.

"I just thought it was as exciting as could be. It's a once- in-a-lifetime opportunity," said contestant Ron Polster, a retired salesman from Ohio whose closest encounter with the swamp has been from the highway heading south for the winter.

Participants pay a $25 entry fee and take an online training course, which consists mostly of looking at photographs of both the targeted pythons and protected native snakes to learn the difference. The state wildlife agency is offering prizes of $1,500 for the most pythons captured and $1,000 for the longest python.

EDIT

http://news.yahoo.com/florida-python-hunting-contest-draws-hundreds-233849996.html

[Xipe Totec]

1. It reminds me of the Great LaRouche Toad-Frog Massacre

There, floating facedown in the turbid water, were hundreds, no, thousands of corpses . . . legs wide apart, arms spread, tongues extended their full eight or ten inches. It was plain as pie that there wasn't a single living toad-frog remaining in that pond. The overwhelming magnitude of the crime grew on us as we stood around, eyese bulging and mouths agape. "Look at Portnoy," I whispered to Milo, for indeed the crushing realization of guilt at what he'd done came across his face like a shadow, and he slumped in shame. These tragic victims were clearly not Russians, although he could have sworn they were when he first saw their gleaming eyes in the early morning light.

Milo, realizing that Portnoy's emotional stability was at stake, went to his side and explained that while, admittedly, the likelihood of those toad-frogs being Communists, or even liberals, was not great, there was no reason to assume that he had wiped out Republicans instead. In fact, there was an excellent chance that the vast majority of them were LaRouche Democrats, who, of course, were better off dead.


http://www.highwaygirl.com/archive/000007.html

[Nihil]

2. I can guess the effectiveness of the "online training course" ...

> ... take an online training course, which consists mostly of looking at photographs
> of both the targeted pythons and protected native snakes to learn the difference.
> The state wildlife agency is offering prizes of $1,500 for the most pythons captured
> and $1,000 for the longest python.

And, hopefully, a fine of at least $8,000 for every protected snake that is killed in the process.




Mind you, first thing that sprang to mind when reading the OP was this ...

I always will remember,
'Twas a year ago November,
I went out to hunt some deer
On a mornin' bright and clear.
I went and shot the maximum the game laws would allow,
Two game wardens, seven hunters, and a cow.
...

[NickB79]

3. I imagine it will be something like this