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Florida to Unleash Python Hunters

By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff

Posted Jul 15, 2009 10:54 AM CDT

(Newser) – With Florida’s python population exploding, state wildlife officials are going on the offensive, hiring a team of trained hunters to track down the alarmingly large snakes and take them out, the Miami Herald reports. “There’s one way to do this: kill the snakes,” says Florida Sen. Bill Nelson, who yesterday called for a hunt in the federally protected Everglades National Park, said to be home to 100,000 of them, each up to 20 feet long.

Though a pet python strangled a toddler two weeks ago near Orlando, the main threat they pose in the wild is to other wildlife, experts say. The Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission considered offering a bounty on the python, but opted instead to deploy professional killers, as the state does to handle alligators. “This is not the wild, wild West,” says the commission’s chairman. “These people will be licensed, trained, and managed by us.”

Florida Sen. Bill Nelson holds the skin of a 16-foot-long, 150 pound Burmese python captured in Miami-Dade County during a July 8, 2009, hearing on Capitol Hill.
Florida Sen. Bill Nelson holds the skin of a 16-foot-long, 150 pound Burmese python captured in Miami-Dade County during a July 8, 2009, hearing on Capitol Hill.   (AP Photo)
In a 2009 photo taken from video, a  Burmese python is seen in the snake pit at the Savannah River Ecology Lab in South Carolina.
In a 2009 photo taken from video, a Burmese python is seen in the snake pit at the Savannah River Ecology Lab in South Carolina.   (AP Photo)
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COMMENTS
Showing 3 of 7 comments
SBS
Jul 15, 2009 8:04 AM CDT
History Channel ran a series about life after people as if people were to disappear suddenly. One of the things that would happen is that eventually pythons would take over much of the southeast without a program to stop them in Florida.
kokuaguy
Jul 15, 2009 6:39 AM CDT
And it's about time they did this. God I hate those motherf*cking things (on our shores) !!!
kokuaguy
Jul 15, 2009 6:38 AM CDT
Laughing so hard at your own "joke" you couldn't use the keyboard? You''re as bad as riff and C_k !!!

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