Job Opening: Wanted python hunters – no experience required

I have never understood the sanity of people who think that having a snake that can grow to the size of 20 feet or more is a brilliant idea. Especially considering that these reptiles can quite comfortably chow down on anything from a deer to a toddler without even a burp. That doesn’t stop the constant buying of non native reptiles, or other animal types, only to find that they are too much to handle. At which point they either get dumped down the nearest sewer drain or closest section of Florida’s Everglades.

Because of this stupidity it is believed that there are currently some 100,000 Burmese pythons living in the Everglades where that have now become the top dog of the food chain. It has gotten so bad that the Governor of Florida has announced a plan to hire expertly trained bounty hunters whose only job will be to hunt down the pythons.

The program, which Barreto said he expected the governor to sign off on Wednesday, would be the first of what could turn into a two-fanged assault on a serpent that routinely grows longer than a Hummer. Florida Sen. Bill Nelson on Tuesday also called for organizing a controlled hunt in the federal lands of Everglades National Park.

”There’s one way to do this: kill the snakes,” Nelson said in an e-mail.

While the FWC is still considering placing a bounty on the constrictors, the state’s initial program will be similar to its handling of wayward alligators.

The dangerous business of capturing a snake that crushes and swallows its prey whole will be left to professionals — perhaps 20 trappers at first who could be cleared to begin taking out pythons within a week.

”This is not the wild, wild West. These people will be licensed, trained and managed by us,” said Barreto, who has been pushing for a python eradication program for two years as the snakes began showing up in increasing numbers in the state-owned water conservation areas north of the national park’s Tamiami Trail boundary.

Source: Miami Herald – Florida hopes to start hunting pythons

And the countdown to PETA nut jobs throwing themselves in front of the bounty hunters begins in 3 … 2… 1….