Saturday, August 20, 2016

Another Python Story

Python that has eaten something BIG.
I've written several times about our trespassing Burmese Pythons that hang out in our Everglades.  Apparently there are more than 150,000 of them.  They're not indigenous to Florida.  They got here courtesy of the exotic pet industry that continues to smuggle strange beasts into our state, sometimes in their underwear.

The problem is that the pythons eat our Florida wild life, including protected species.  A while back, as a solution to the problem, the state sponsored Python Challenge was begun.  This last time 104 pythons were killed in the hunting contest.  And this time an examination of the digestive systems in these pythons produced the remains of the following:
Python eating an alligator

7 Alligators
2 Deer
38 Birds
16 Rats
8 Opossums
7 Muskrats
3 Raccoons
3 Rabbits
2 Squirrels
1 Wood Stork


For the life of me, I can't imagine who would want an 18 foot Burmese Python as an "exotic pet."


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