Giant Python Digesting a Deer Captured and Killed in West Miami-Dade

• We will once again go to Hawaii for our winter vacation.  When you kill all those pythons in the Glades let us know and we will return to Naples. 

• Because it's not for us to take care of it.  Haven't you been reading all the way through?  As for "post and rip," I will always rip anyone who tries to "rip" me.  Especially snake haters.

• Okay, so why is it encouraged to go out kill lion fish, but not these suckers? Same shit!  They ain't from here! Too bad we can't deport THEM back to their native habitat.

• Lets start a new movement!  Occupy Snakes

• Ban importation - too many uneducated individuals purchase these creatures and subsequently seemingly let them out when they tire of the "pet"... hence the growing number found in the Everglades. Possessing a potential lethal snake ought to be approached the same way they do gun owners; require a permit and get registered. Troy, I don't think I'd need "I.D. the 14 ft Snake in Front of You" reference book... to determine if  that snake may be a possible danger to me.

• I appreciate the correlation to reintroduction of wolves.  I'm from the west and wolves have been seen near bus stops.  I would certainly assume snakes would do the same in Florida.

• How about getting to the real root of the problem, which is human beings....no one needs to keep Pythons as pets, no one needs to breed pythons for pet trade. If this was not allowed in the first place, guess what, there would be no problem in the everglades! Oh but wait that makes too much sense.  Just outlaw exotic pets period, and I know people will say "well I know so and so who has pythons and they  are so responsible about them" yadda yadda....the world will live perfectly fine without owning exotic animals and a whole lot of tradgedy will be avoided.  In the end it's always the animals that pay the price for human selfishness and stupidity.  

• Because the FWC doesn't let anyone do just that?  Idiot

• Well how about all of you people who have nothing better to do than post on blogs like this go out & take care of the problem.  Seems you have nothing better to do than post & rip each other up on here.

• Could be, that's why they've directed teams to concentrate on it.

• What a chickens***t thing to say.

• You're right, Apey, and that's been pretty much proven, even to the point of extinction.  Some even believe that man may eventually eliminate man.

• No, son, it's not elitism, it's protecting idiots and the wrong snakes from being killed by lunkheads who don't know one type of snake from another, which can, as a result, cause even more damge to the ecosystem.  You're wrong about anyone with a fuctioning brain being able to recognize the difference.  I've seen plenty of people who are at least of your brain-fuctioning capacity not know.  If the snake is 14 feet long, it gets easier to tell.  But most people, regardlessof mental capacity, know very little about snakes except how to fear them.  There's not necessarily anything wrong with cowardice, as long as it's not making the laws.  And just in case you're assuming I'm one of the guys with the job of hunting them down and making the "$75k-per-annum"--no, I have nothing to do with that and I haven't even met any of them.  But they know what they're doing, and they're out there doing it.  You're not.  You're just typing away, all sassy and racist.  Sinanju...East Indian?

• This is out of control.  I think it's too late to stop them all.

• Nothing can eradicate a species like man. Buffalo and eastern coyote quickly come to mind. Not completely but very close. You want to get rid of them, open the season!

• Someone needs to kill every last one of them, eventually they will get out of control and one day you'll here a report of them killing a person, probably a child. They are dangerous creatures. The sooner they are gone the better.

• Why do the professional park managers think the only way to solve a problem is to kill another animal? Just keep shooting everything that makes sense.

• That's a load of phony elitism.  I have absolutely had it with these cable nature channels where it's all-pythons-all-the-time.  It has become an absolute farce watching these things.  You have these $75k-per-annum-plus-full-medical-and-pension macho bureaucrats in khaki cargo pants driving their taxpayer-funded white SUVs around South Florida rounding up these stupid, suggish reptiles with kid gloves--acting like they're doing something heroic and carting them off to what resemble state-funded petting zoos!  They don't want to actually solve the problem.  They want to protect their phony-baloney jobs!  It sure beats working for a living! From what I've seen ANYONE with a functioning brain can learn to recognize a Burmese or African Rock Python and CHOP ITS DAMN HEAD OFF!  The FL governor could have this "threat" solved cheaply in about seventy-two hours if he only offered a fifty-dollar bounty for python heads and put these "professionals" in charge of a website and a few roadside stands to collect and identify the heads and pay out the bounties.  Considering how many desperate people there are in South Florida (and everywhere else) all you have to do is let the Bubbas and Guillermos off the leash and you'll have this problem solved in a jiffy. Hee!  Hee!  If there was a bounty, the next time a housewifey sees a python in her back yard--instead of blubbering to the reptile control hotline--she'd channel her inner Davy Crockett, grab a cleaver or junior's Louisville slugger and run out to make choppy-chop (baby needs new shoes). Whacking Day!!!

• Frank Zappa said it best " my python boots are to tight I couldn't get them off last night"

• Why they killed it? haven't you read any of the comments? They do not belong here in fla and if they can eat a deer that weighs 76 pounds then it is reasonable to assume they would have no problem wrapping up a 40 pound child and making them disappear... Kill them all with extreme vengence, flood the market with python skin boots

• Im wondering why they killed it.

• They ambush their prey.  The deer was likely foraging near where the snake was at, or maybe sleeping.  Snakes are VERY quiet.

• I agree,Teri.  Twenty-plus years ago I was an advocate of wolf reintroduction, thinking "what a great idea, they lived there long ago and it seems so natural."  That's been shown to be a bad choice, like you said.  There are reasons a species is no longer in an area, and sometimes it's best to leave well enough alone.  The snakes that got into the everglades which are from another part of the world originally are an apparent combination of some being turned loose by pet owners and mostly from the hurricanes that hit Florida, especially Hurricane Hugo in 1989.  There were snake breeding facilities and warhouses for the pet trade and some were wiped out, with all these snakes getting out and many reproducing.  They thrived in the everglades.  Two decades later there's a problem.  The threat to the ecosystem is one danger, but like Garry mentioned above, the most disturbing image is of what happens when they quietly aproach people, especially children.  There have been alligator attacks on people in Florida out for morning walks, from gators looking for an easy meal and finding it in unsuspecting people, especially senior citizens.  Burmese pythons can and do eat alligators.  Imagine a very large one coiling a an elderly person on their morning stroll.  They're getting closer to society.  I have a good deal of experience handling them and can tell you that their strength is unbelievable.  In fact, I often tell people that if they have kids they really shouldn't have snakes that can grow to an excessive size.  Everyone has their own tastes for pets, but the giant snakes aren't suitable for very many people.  Thank you for you time. 

• I don't understand how the snake did it?  Deer move fairly fast; don't they?

• Well said, Troy.  Though I feel sad the animals ultimately get destroyed for doing what comes natural to them, not being indigenous to the area affects the entire eco-system.  Sometimes even animals that were indigenous at one time become a problem. For example, the re-introduction of wolves in Montana and Wyoming--not a well thought out plan if you ask me.  Especially for the wolves. The irresponsibility of "civilians" letting their pets loose in the wild ( I am assuming this is how a python would end up in the everglades) is the source of this particular problem.  I am confident they would be equally irresponsible about irraticating the animals.

• The professionals are the ones with the authorization, as it should be.  They know which types of snakes have to go and why.  Lay people do stupid things when turned loose.  But the "40 pound child" reference is the larger picture for removal.  If the situation continues unabated it could lead to something like what you're referring to.  Unindigenous animals introduced to an area can have destructive repercussions when they get out of control, as is the case in the everglades.

• It'll only be lethargic til the next dinner, Garry's right kill em all

• So why, since the snake was lethargic, would you kill it?

• I dont care who gets rid of them--76lb deer? how about a 40 pound child? I say kell every one of them !

• No, they only justifications to destroy them aren't because they are eating cute deer or because they seem scary to some, but because they are becoming a threat to the ecosystem and a potential danger to our own species should they come crawling for food.  They can't exactly be relocated or adopted out, and the Game dept. isn't in the business of finding homes in the first place.  A series of flukes caused the situation to occur, and only qualified people should removing them, not a bunch of uninformed, uneducated yahoos.

• FWC needs to implement either a bounty system to encourage people to get out there and kill these destructive creatures or allow them to be hunted year round in ALL areas.

• Thank goodness they killed it before it took a crap!!!

• Oh my god

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