Burmese Pythons Squeeze South Florida (Warning-Picture)

[Are_grits_groceries]

“If you are standing in front of a large snake right now don’t panic…”

So says the greeting message for the Florida Keys python hotline, 888-IVE-GOT1. Over the years enough pet Burmese pythons in south Florida have been released into the wild that one National Park Service scientist has estimated now there could be as many as 30,000 of them in the Everglades National Park area. (Between 1996 and 2006 about 99,000 were imported into the United States).

Burmese pythons can grow up to 20 feet long and weigh up to 200 pounds. Their appetite for local wildlife is endangering protected species that are vulnerable to any predators, especially ones as capable as the huge snakes. Research by the University of Florida identified the remains of the following wild Florida animals in the digestive tracts of the invading pythons: alligator, rabbit, two types of rats, domestic cat, cotton mouse, gray squirrel, fox squirrel, raccoon, oppossum, bobcat, muskrat, rice rat, white-tailed deer, Key Largo woodrat, and six species of birds. In 2006 it was discovered by scientists that pythons are breeding in Everglades National Park. A female can lay 80 eggs at a time.

http://ecoworldly.com/2009/04/01/burmese-pythons-squeeze-south-florida/

I'm sure they are in SC or soon will be.

[dysfunctional press]

1. another plus for living with cold winters...

no fire ants or killer bees, either.

[pinniped]

2. Someone needs to remove these invaders and make boots out of them.

I'm talking about the irresponsible assholes that dump their overgrown snakes over there.

[ColbertWatcher]

3. So, which one? The alligator/crocodile or the snake? n/t

[lonestarnot]

5. That would be a gator CW.

:D crocs have two big nose bumps. :P here lizard lizard lizard. :donut:

[ColbertWatcher]

18. What I meant to ask was which one won? n/t

[Vinca]

4. Forget all my former rants about cold weather.

I love snow, I love snow, I love snow.

[trotsky]

6. Yup.

No reptiles bigger than a garter snake, no bugs large enough to carry off a small child. There are some pretty great benefits to suffering through a northern plains winter.

[geek tragedy]

7. It looks like the gator is eating the snake.

The snake is in its jaws, not the other way around.

[Are_grits_groceries]

8. May have killed them both.

The gator may have choked.

[aikoaiko]

9. Time to open a hunting season. What do pythons taste like?

:shrug:

[Ilsa]

11. I would imagine the skin makes some nice accessories:

I wouldn't spend money on this stuff, but you know someone will.

[Xenotime]

14. That's horrible. Skin, like fur, is murder.

[Ilsa]

16. Reptiles? Hmm. Doesn't bother me much. I'd prefer that all of an animal

killed be used, but I would make an exception for reptiles.

I am mostly vegetarian, BTW, only because being a total vegetarian is difficult with my family of non-veggies. I stay away from silk and leather as much as possible, also. I don't wear fur, but had a synthetic look-alike when I lived with cold winters.

[Stuckinthebush]

12. Chicken

Everything tastes like chicken, right?

:D

[ThomWV]

13. Don't know about Python but Rattlesnake isn't very good

I've got a friend that lives in a place where there are lots of rattle snakes and he used to make a big deal out of cooking and eating one now and then. And of course if you were there and young you had to eat some too, particularly if lots of beer was flowing - which it normally was back then. So I've had it a couple of times and I have to tell you, its not very good. I would not say it tastes like chicken, but its bland like that. The consistency is what I disliked. While I wouldn't call it tough, I'd say - this is hard to describe - sort of stringy. Were it a plant I'd say it was very fibrous. Anyway I doubt that a big squeezing snake would be any different, and probably worse.

Hail to the Chief

[Ilsa]

17. That makes sense. There are some meats I simply wouldn't try back when

I was a meateater. Now I consume a little bit of chicken, but only on rare occasions when it is difficult to "do my own thing" with the family, etc.

[Ilsa]

10. Dry in Texas is good enough for me, although we do have

both gators and snakes here. My brother killed a small copperhead last weekend at our father's house, where there are no gators. But we have wetlands here on the coast with gators and snakes. Thankfully, no pythons, yet.

[DS1]

15. More damage from 'exotic pet' shitheads?