Posted on 08/26/2007 7:15:48 AM PDT by LibWhacker
Sounds like this boy could be the next Michael Vick.
This was someone’s pet (and it was wrong for the boy) to do this (oh and I think it was kind of outrageous those of you who called me a the same a Michael Vick, which I think aborhorant and evil as was done for on purpose and for cruelty..there is a difference..!) Look it was wrong, my only point is that this boy was a child (he should be punished), but not treated as a criminal, IMO. Have you never done ANYTHING stupid as a kid..?
Anyway, after this I refuse to comment further after this, as I really couldn’t care less about this topic..ENOUGH!
The kids parents should pay for the snake.
You really make yourself look stupid when you post something as illiterate as “You are stupied and cannot not read”.
> “he’s only a kid!”
Only a kid. He’s a cruel sadistic brat who reflects bad upbringing by parents no better than himself.
About 15 years ago my then teenage daughter brought home a kitten that needed adopting. We adopted him because he was cute and friendly. About 2 months later, the grandchildren of our neighbors across the street were spending a month with the grandparents and the kids were all over the neighborhood. The 7 year old kid said he hated cats and stomped the 4 month old kitten breaking his leg. The grandparents and parents said it was just a cat and did nothing about it. We rushed the kitten to the vet and he had a cast for about a month. Young animals heal fast thank god. We haven’t spoken to thhe neighbors since. The kid wasn’t born with a hate for kittens. This is something learned from the parents.
Thanks for the more detailed article. Yes it might be viewed as “biased” but it gives the context. It was in a petting zoo area of the fair (not slithering down the Midway). It was docile, laying there and being petted by numerous kids and adults. The kid was obviously not fearful of the snake as he approached it, lifted his foot, then listened to the owner for a second, and stopped and left. Then he returned to the snake to stomp on its head.
We have one of these guys in our area and you can hire him for birthday parties, etc. He has many more snakes and things at his “Reptile House” that or whatever its called you can go visit - but only brings the more docile ones out for the fairs, etc. I imagine that it was the same for this guy too.
Why it described him and his reading.
Yeah, he's probably just lying about the whole thing anyway!/s
Wow, nice grandparents/parents. They sound like they would identify with old Nahoul:
http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1532.htm
“This is something learned from the parents.”
Everytime some little creep does something, someone says they learned it from the parents. It’s ridiculous, as if it’s not possible for kids to learn hatred or bad behavior from personal experience, friends or the media. Jeffrey Dahmer didn’t learn to eat people from his parents. Sometimes a psychopath is just a psychopath.
I wouldn't expect some brat to do that. The kid is old enough to know that what he did was wrong. What if the punk was into fires & burned down your house, would you shrug it off because "he's only a kid"?
My son is 10 now and he knows the rules well. Wasps, flies, mosquitoes, and roaches in the house need to be killed. They are intruders and they are harmful. Outside we leave them alone unless they show signs of trying to get in. We do not harm animals unless they pose a threat. Water moccasins around the fishing pond are a threat, as are copperheads in the yard. Otherwise we leave them alone. When I was a kid I used to burn bugs with a magnifying glass, but I have taught my kids better.
The thing is, we don’t know the whole story, because kid and dad are not available for comment. But Braunstein’s comments, his side of the story, have travelled world-wide.
On another note, this story brought to mind some earlier stories this year regarding Burmese pythons.
Here’s the first one I googled:
Huge, Freed Pet Pythons Invade Florida Everglades
Stefan Lovgren
for National Geographic News
June 3, 2004
In February, a group of tourists at the Pa-hay-okee Overlook in Florida’s Everglades National Park stumbled upon a battle between an alligator and a python. The stunned onlookers watched as the snake wrapped itself around the alligator, only to see its opponent counter by rolling over and grabbing the snake in its mouth and swimming off with the snake in its jaw.
It was not the first such battle. In January of last year, a horde of tourists watched another epic contest between an alligator and a python at the park’s Anhinga Trail. After more than 24 hours in the jaws of the alligator, that snake broke free and moved off into the marsh.
For now, the alligators in the Florida Everglades are holding their ground against the invading snakes. But the odds may be changing. The park is being overrun with Burmese pythons, one of the world’s largest snakes. These pythons can grow to be more than 20 feet (6 meters) long in their natural habitat in Southeast Asia.
The Burmese python is just one of thousands of non-native animal and plant species that have invaded the United States in the last decades. Florida teems with exotic creatures that have no business living there. Other regions have their own problems. Snakehead fish, for example, have infested the Potomac River near Washington, D.C.
The economic toll from damage by invasive species—and the costs of trying to control them—is enormous: U.S. $137 billion a year, according to a 1999 Cornell University study.
The ecological outlook is equally grim. Second only to habitat loss, invasive species are a leading cause of species endangerment and extinction both in the United States and worldwide. Almost half of the species on the U.S. endangered species list are threatened wholly or partly by introduced species. Steven A. Williams, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, calls invasive species the number one environmental threat to the United States.
Not So Cute
Some invasive species may be “stowaway” organisms that arrive here inside packing materials, or micro-critters that are dumped from ships’ water tanks. But many plants and animals also enter the U.S. as part of the booming trade in exotic pets or food.
Burmese pythons are popular—and legal—pet snakes. In the past five years, the U.S. has imported more than 144,000 Burmese pythons. Hatchlings sell for as little as U.S. $20. But once the cute little baby snakes turn into 15-foot-long (5-meter-long) beasts, some owners may decide to get rid of their pets by dumping them in the forest.
“All of the Burmese pythons that we see in the park are a product of the international pet trade,” said Skip Snow, a wildlife biologist at Everglades National Park.
Snow’s office voice mail also doubles as a python sightings hot line. Since the mid-1990s park rangers have captured or killed 68 Burmese pythons in Everglades National Park.
The pythons are now most certainly breeding in the park. They have been found eating gray squirrels, possums, black rats, and house wrens. Perhaps even more worrying, the pythons may be preying on native mangrove fox squirrels and wood storks. And they could be competing with the eastern indigo snake for both prey and space. The eastern indigo snake is listed as threatened by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
There are serious concerns about human safety as well.
Florida teems with other non-native species—from African monitor lizards to vervet monkeys. “Its diverse habitats and suitable climates from the subtropical southern peninsula and Florida Keys north to the subtemperate panhandle have facilitated exotics in becoming established and expanding their ranges,” said Kenneth Krysko. Krysko is a herpetologist at the Florida Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida in Gainesville.
Experts say the greatest damage from invasive animals may be done by aquatic species. Earlier this year a survey revealed that 16 species of non-native tropical fish have been found at 32 locations along the southeast coast of Florida—all most likely introduced when hobbyists freed aquarium fish into the ocean.
Too Slow to Act
But Florida is hardly alone in the fight against invasive species.
The emerald ash borer first arrived at a Great Lakes port in wooden packing material on Korean or Chinese freighters a couple of years ago. Since then the metallic green Asian beetle has destroyed six million trees in Michigan.
San Francisco Bay contains some 260 non-native species. The African clawed frog, meanwhile, has taken over Lily Pond in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Native to Kenya, the frogs eat almost anything and breed like crazy. They alter ecosystems by gobbling up insects, fish, and even birds. The only way to prevent them from spreading is to , but that would cost cash-strapped California millions of dollars.
Many experts say the United States has been too slow to act and is now paying the price.
“Once these invasive species are established, they are virtually impossible to eradicate,” said Ken Burton, a spokesman at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “In most cases we can only hope to control them.”
Dean Wilkinson, the invasive-species coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Washington, D.C., says a new approach is long overdue.
“In the past we treated this as individual pest problems,” Wilkinson said. “It’s only recently that we’ve recognized this as a major environmental and economic problem. If we had had the foresight to spend money at the front end, we would not have had to spend millions to deal with the problem at the back end.”
Biological Pollution
It’s not just animals but also plants that cause damage. According to the United States Department of the Interior, 100 million acres (40 million hectares) of land in the U.S. are infested with invasive plants.
“The invasive species having the biggest ecological and probably economic impact are those that modify habitat,” said Daniel Simberloff, a biology professor at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. “Most of these are plants, like melaleuca and Brazilian pepper in South Florida, or cheatgrass in the West.”
Increased global travel and trade have exacerbated the biological pollution. The booming trade in nimals as pets has opened the floodgates for invasive species coming into the U.S. Miami International Airport reportedly receives 70 foreign shipments per day, some with thousands of animals, such as tarantulas, lizards, and snakes.
Many of the species are illegally imported. Only 1 to 2 percent of cargo containers are actually opened and checked. But many of the nimals are perfectly legal to bring into the country. U.S. residents, for example, can legally own 22 of the 24 pythons found around the world.
“As the trade expands, the problem of invasive species will become worse,” Burton said.
Snow, the Everglades National Park biologist, appeals to pet owners who may have grown tired of their nimals: “Please don’t release them into the wild.”
Carolyn
VictoryGal>>But if you — or your kids — come after my dogs intending harm, you better be prepared to be in a world of hurt. Count on it.
org.whodat>Would you care to tell me who said anything about your stupid pet’s.
Anyone who is willing to kill someone else’s pet, or run away from the responsibility of making sure their brat doesn’t kill someone else pet, isn’t getting near *mine*. Get it?
org.whodat>Who do you know that the boy isn’t retired. I suppose that you would want to off him if that was the case.
“Who do you know that the boy isn’t retired”?
What the heck are you trying to say? Honestly, I can’t tell.
Great. Then let these properly raised, fully mature 10 year olds have the right to vote, drink, serve in the military and have sex. :-)
All ten year olds are immature. That's just a fact.
And what penalty would you impose on a ten year old who willfully kills a snake?
That doesn't include the replacement costs that are going to be payed by the taxpayers.
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