Huge python in Fla. had eaten a deer

[Are_grits_groceries]

EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK, Fla. - Officials in the Florida Everglades have captured and killed a 16-foot-long Burmese python that had just eaten an adult deer.


Scott Hardin, exotic species coordinator for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, said workers found the snake on Thursday. The reptile was one of the largest ever found in South Florida.

Hardin said the python had recently consumed a 76-pound female deer that had died. He said it was an important capture to help stop the spread of pythons further north.

The python was killed with a shotgun blast.

Skip Snow, a biologist and python specialist at Everglades National Park, who conducted the snake necropsy, said the snake had a girth of 44 inches with the deer inside.

"This is clearly an extreme event,” he told the Sun-Sentinel. “It shows you they can eat huge things."

http://on.msnbc.com/vm6ac5

Whoooooo! Let's be careful out there. That thing could snatch a child in a heartbeat.

[Fumesucker]

1. I used to hang with the herpetologists at the local zoo..

A married couple, they had a five room apartment where three of the rooms were for reptiles..

One of their "pets" was a reticulate python just a bit smaller than the one in the story..

Impressive beast, took two strong people to pick up the cage they had it in.

[Jamastiene]

2. People have been letting them out into the wild down there for years.

It is a real problem. They have entire teams who go out and try to get them out of the wild before they destroy the ecosystem down there and put a lot of people, pets, and children in harm's away. It's a losing battle though. There are now so many loose down there.

I wonder how long before the pythons, boas, tegus, and other assorted invasive species in Florida move to the rest of southeast. I also wonder how long before cobras start breeding down there then spreading too...Never say never. The thought of it is cringe-worthy and entirely possible.

[asjr]

3. That snake Rick Scott slithered in. Hope

you can get rid of him.

[Tesha]

5. It's Nagini??? (NT)

[polichick]

4. It should be a felony to bring those things into the country, and also to let them go...

I once had a wonderful conversation with Marjorie Stoneman Douglas, who wrote RIVER OF GRASS and played a big part in saving the Everglades. I'll never forget her. It drives me crazy that the people of Florida, my home state, would elect an asshole like Rick Scott. I can't imagine him doing much to help protect any wild areas of Florida.

[Are_grits_groceries]

7. I have a cousin who

spends a lot of time in the swamps and woods of Northeast SC. He swears he has seen a snake that has to be a cobra. I don't doubt him. We have all been around a lot of snakes all of our lives. I know he wasn't joking, and I doubt if he made a mistake.

[TheCowsCameHome]

6. Ugh.

No thanks........