Posted on 02/26/2010 12:15:11 PM PST by OldDeckHand
Thousands of 10-foot pythons roam the Florida Everglades, menacing man and beast alike. Catharine Skipp prepares to join the historic hunting expedition designed to stamp them out.
There are giant beasts stalking South Florida. Seriously: Burmese Pythons that can grow as long as a Winnebago and have been known to swallow German shepherds who take a wrong turn. There are an estimated 30,000 of them, slithering through Miami and surrounding counties. The reptiles wreak havoc on the local ecosystem. They can also kill people. Just last year, an 8½-foot family pet Burmese escaped its cage and strangled a 2-year-old girl while she slept in her crib.
Concern about the snake menace has been growing for years. Last summer, the state offered 19 hunters licenses to chase down the critters, hoping they could help bring the population under control. It didn’t work. So now, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is taking a far more dramatic step: On March 6, they’re declaring open season on the giant pythons, opening up 736,000 prime snake-hunting acres to any Floridian with a hunting license. People from as far away as Australia want in on the action. For six weeks, an expected crowd of hundreds will get to take their best shot at bagging the beasts.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
Python would make a great Boot, imho.
Sounds like a good way to get rid of the Nutria.. and wild pigs..
Sounds like a good thing to me, unleash 30,000 deadly Pythons on Miami.
I’m rooting for the snakes.
Why won’t they just leave me alone?
Sounds like a good way to get rid of the Nutria.. and wild pigs..
Python would make a great Boot, imho.
Them 10-footers would make both boots!
They should let it run for 3 or 4 months. Even then I wonder how much they’ll be able to affect the population if it truly is 30,000.
I’d sure hate to run into a python the length of a Winnebago, myself.
What, you're in a jon boat? Is it day or night? I mean, are pythons nocturnal?
Sounds like a good way to get rid of the Nutria.. and wild pigs..
a friend down there said that lots died during the big freeze....hopefully that will do the job naturally.
I was thinking of a belt & wallet myself. But I am stuck up here in S.E. Mi. & I am unable to have a fire arm due to having a head injury [as per the Brady handgun control act of 1993] But I would love to go down there to have fun in a hunt!
I was thinking of a belt & wallet myself. But I am stuck up here in S.E. Mi. & I am unable to have a fire arm due to having a head injury [as per the Brady handgun control act of 1993] But I would love to go down there to have fun in a hunt!
I had a couple of big snakes when I was a kid.
A boa that grew to about 7ft. and a python that grew to about 6ft.
I gave them to a friend (when they started eating rabbits, I had enough) who subsequently gave them to a herpetologist.
They just got too big to deal with.
Good luck trying to eradicate them. Their babies are the size of earthworms.
Next week, I'm driving into the Everglades (the section that is known as Rotenberger and Holeylands WMA's) to look for rabbits while Small Game season is still on.
If the cold snap holds on, there'll be serpents up on the limestone-gravel levees.
Me 'n my Remy' shottie are gonna let Freedom "bang"!
Ping.
Is there any indication many of them have frozen to death recently?
Tastes like chicken.
Probably best to stay away from any SE Asian restaurant for the next year or so...
If you want to stamp out snakes, I'd suggest starting in Washington.
A sane solution to a problem from a gubmint agency? Wow.
Probably best to stay away from any SE Asian restaurant for the next year or so...
For those of us who live above the Frost Line, life is good.
Recent reports have cited a dying off of many exotic species, including the python, due to that global warming induced cold winter we are experiencing.
Better than declaring an open season on the critters, let a few motivated entrepeneurs go after them with the ability to make some commercial gain.
I doubt they will find many snakes. Its a needle in the haystack, feel good proposition. Ever looked for snakes in a swamp?
Nutria and wild hogs are destructive, for sure, but I’ll take them anyday over giant snakes. If we had those snakes here I would insist Mr. Ditter go out and hunt/kill them. ;0)
They should give a bounty on every python killed.
It sounds like some of the snakes could take care of the nutria and the feral pigs.
Only two things really worry this reptile: python-hunting Freepers and mongooses
I would take the nutria and wild pigs any day, over those snakes.
Wasn’t the writer of this article arrested last week in Alabama for murder...?
Or at least a twin sister...
ParcMan seems to have dipped into yet another Federal funding source and has been busy being “Hog Butcher to the Everglades” - apologies to Carl Sandburg.
Thanks to “Invasive Species” funding, ParcMan has been busy attempting to kill of the wild hogs in the Everglades for some years. Early on, they put a gunner in a chopper and tried, ala Apocalypse Now, to bring ‘death from above’ to the Everglades hog population.
Alas, the pig with the machine gun opened fire on a large porker,but the pig made it into a hammock (island of dense trees). The pilot hovered just above the ground, carefully avoiding the numerous dwarf cypress trees surrounding his impromptu ‘landing zone’.
At that moment, the four legged pig decided to die in a blaze of glory and charged the hovering pig on two legs. When a large pig hit the chopper skids, it moved the chopper enough that the pilot felt the tail rotor blades brushing a cypress tree.
Had the tail rotor blades been damaged, the pig would have taken the pigs in the Pig Chopper with it.
As it happened, the pig on the ground was blasted and the chopper was not destroyed.
Good thing for the Armed & Rangerous, as headlines screaming “Hog destroys Pig Chopper” would not have been a career builder.
PS The freezes have been far more effective that gubmint trained snake hunters.
PPS Imagine some goobermint goobers teaching airboat operators who hunted in the ‘Glades all their lives, how to kill a snake.
Now, try to keep from laughing over this latest goobermint debacle.
Does anyone remember the Simpsons episode where they had a day in which they killed snakes and they used Barry White to lure the snakes into the house and protect them? They even had a song called “Oh Whacking Day” based on “Oh Christmas Tree?”
Unless all of them are killed, they will repopulate in time.
Hey, maybe some of the PETAphiles will become human shields, standing between hunter and her prey... And the pythons may strike.
>>>I’d be interested to see what my Remington HD 12 guage w/Knoxx stock loaded with slugs would do. <<<
I would recommend some good old fashioned 3 1/2” lead T or F shot (one step down from buckshot). Used to goose hunt in Anahuac, Texas and you could really reach out and touch those critters with this load.
The load you’re describing is my zombie load!
ParcMan seems to have dipped into yet another Federal funding source and has been busy being “Hog Butcher to the Everglades” - apologies to Carl Sandburg.
Thanks to “Invasive Species” funding, ParcMan has been busy attempting to kill of the wild hogs in the Everglades for some years. Early on, they put a gunner in a chopper and tried, ala Apocalypse Now, to bring ‘death from above’ to the Everglades hog population.
Alas, the pig with the machine gun opened fire on a large porker,but the pig made it into a hammock (island of dense trees). The pilot hovered just above the ground, carefully avoiding the numerous dwarf cypress trees surrounding his impromptu ‘landing zone’.
At that moment, the four legged pig decided to die in a blaze of glory and charged the hovering pig on two legs. When a large pig hit the chopper skids, it moved the chopper enough that the pilot felt the tail rotor blades brushing a cypress tree.
Had the tail rotor blades been damaged, the pig would have taken the pigs in the Pig Chopper with it.
As it happened, the pig on the ground was blasted and the chopper was not destroyed.
Good thing for the Armed & Rangerous, as headlines screaming “Hog destroys Pig Chopper” would not have been a career builder.
PS The freezes have been far more effective that gubmint trained snake hunters.
PPS Imagine some goobermint goobers teaching airboat operators who hunted in the ‘Glades all their lives, how to kill a snake.
Now, try to keep from laughing over this latest goobermint debacle.
Fabulous idea. It’s because of all the idiots who thought it would be cool to own a Python until it grew.
Kill them all and sell the skins to boot and purse makers. They can feed the rest of the darn snakes to the gators, who at least belong here!
Why won’t they just leave me alone?
I'm surprised my good friends at Tony Lama aren't sponsoring this hunt.
A lot of them have either died from the cold or died from the respitory infections they get from cold weather.
There are at least 3 groups of radio tracked snakes. Orlando area, northern Florida and Georgia (? or south carolina?). Initial reports say that the northern groups are mostly dead while the southern group is 50/50. So the snakes are not doing so well and will never spread much further north than sourthern florida.
FYI, the federal governement is currently trying to get 9 of the large snakes species added to the Lacy act where they will basically be taken out of the pet trade and the reptile pet industry will lose a 33% chuck of it’s buisiness. Why punish everyone for one states problem? Governemnt needs to instead keep this a local state issue and inforce the laws already on the books. Again the government wants to punish all pet owners because of a few people that abuse the system.
Google python ban or s373 if you want more info. Or hit my tagline...
Put a fifty dollar bounty on them and Bubba will eradicate them for you and gain weight doing it!
Any exotic snake sold as pet should be neutered first!
Some questions:
1. How do you get a hunting license?
2. What do you hunt them with? A 12 gauge with double 00 or rifled slugs.
3. Are rifles permitted?
4. What do you do with them after you kill them? Skin them and tan the hide?
5. Where can you hunt them? How do you get permission to go on the land?
Enquiring minds would like to know.
Snakes......why did it have to be Snakes?
Natural selection could raise it's ugly head - the ones that survived will start moving north... One more joy of living in Florida.
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