WHILE DRIVING IN the swamplands some 40 miles west of Miami, Mike Kirkland noticed a log lying in the road ahead, so he and his colleague stepped out of their white GMC work truck. This was no log. “As we got closer, we realized it was a python,” he says. “It was so big, it looked like a fallen tree.” Kirkland asked the colleague to hang back, then crept to within five feet of the predator as it basked on the warm pavement.
“She saw me,” he says. “I’m 5’11”. And she picked herself up and practically looked me in the eye.” The snake’s sheer size gave him pause—but not for long. She stretched open her mouth, revealing dozens of curved teeth as sharp as daggers, then launched her head at Kirkland. He dodged a couple of strikes before spotting an opening to grab the snake’s head. The nonvenomous 17-foot constrictor then tried to wrap herself around the sweating Kirkland, who slipped through coil after coil. About 20 minutes later, the exhausted snake gave in, and Kirkland euthanized the animal.
This is all in a day’s work for Kirkland, an invasive-animal biologist who manages the South Florida Water Management District’s Python Elimination Program. His team patrols roads like this one beside Big Cypress National Preserve looking for Burmese pythons, one of the world’s most unyielding invasive species. The team recently removed their 8,000th python. MORE
Lovely.
Yikes!
This will not end well. Even the eradication program is woke!!
This is all in a day’s work for Kirkland, an invasive-animal biologist who manages the South Florida Water Management District’s Python Elimination Program.
Every capture and kill follows ethics guidelines and federal laws about transporting illegal pets. “They need to be respected as the beautiful living creatures that they are,” Kirkland says. “They’re here through no fault of their own.”
Imagine this in your backyard:
https://twitter.com/AweInspireMe/status/1695865289248797047?s=20
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What happens when they run out of small mammals to eat?
Glad they can’t make it any further than Florida, sorry Sunshine state.
Very similar to eradicating RINOs in Washington, DC.
If you’re successful in ridding Washington of one, McCarthy and McCONnell have two others to take the open Districts
You show me any gathering of progs and I will guarandamntee you that they are way over represented by the kind of weirdo who keeps snakes as a “pet” than the general population. Fucking Satanic idiots think their antics are cute, smart and funny.
The Church of Satan has used animal tropes recurrently. This article analyzes some of the most important animal representations that Anton LaVey came up with, both for esthetic and ideological purposes. Seizing on the long traditions of Satanism, LaVey embraced goat imagery to a significant degree. He also chose this particular animal for its associations with Pan, and the themes surrounding sexuality. Likewise, he embraced the snake, lion, and panthers. Yet, his choice of animal symbolism went beyond the esthetic. As he established the Church of Satan, LaVey hoped to construct an ideology that would emphasize humans’ animalistic aspect. In this endeavor, he also made use of animal imagery.
They cook alligators up in delicious concoctions why not pythons ??? Gotta be better than bugs I would think. Then the environ-mental-ists would have them declared an endangered species prolly.
If they were serious about getting rid of these things they’d encourage everyone in their habitat to carry a small caliber scoped rifle. One in the head and dead.
Just like iguanas:
https://youtu.be/caFkML4X30g?si=wIKo49weFERH3wbL
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Brad I would prefer a shotgun with lots of extra shells AND a couple Bond Arms or S&W Governors loaded with .410 as a backup.
Holy cow! That thing is huge!
Why don’t they have hatchets or something to just cut the head off or cut it in half if they can get that close?
That guy needs a sword. Snicker snack!
The twist is that they have become murder Pythons?
Next, do Manatees.
RickeyG
LOL, if it’s me, I’m shooting that thing from about 250 yards away. I hate snakes.
Good for boots, belts holsters & hatbands; and not much else.
Kinda like politicians.
Just let slip that python meat is an aphrodisiac. Problem solved.
@aircubed, I think the author meant that they think another invasive species, black rats seem to be able to at least defend themselves and kill young pythons.
Given that they’re cold blooded, I imagine trying to find the things in the swamps with thermal sights isn’t going to work too well.
I like the rabbits in a box idea though I imagine the snakes get wise to that trick fairly quickly.
Kirkland, an invasive animal biologist identified the python as female.
How can they tell what a female snake is, yet have a hell of a time identifying a human female?
“Every capture and kill follows ethics guidelines and federal laws about transporting illegal pets.”
Ethical guide lines require capturing a snake by wrestling with it for twenty minutes until it is exhausted? And I suppose to kill it means reading it the Congressional Record until it’s bored to death.
Colt Python, meet Florida python.
Just shoot the thing.
These pythons don’t hold a candle to the purple black python lurking in Michelle Obama’s crotch which chokes the living shit out of Barack on a regular basis. How do you think their chef died recently. He drowned alright but it was on Michael/Moochelle’s one eyed snake of horror.