bengraven
Member
The possible future (refers to US Habitat suitability for Burmese Pythons):
Moving back to Minnesota.
A REAL MAN.
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Pythons wiping out Everglades mammals, study finds
- Thread starter Ripclawe
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Moving back to Minnesota.
A REAL MAN.
Pssst... anyone want to buy a Komodo Dragon?
rich/weird people
Screw these big ass snakes
Guy almost gets his testes bitten off
I'll never understand why anyone would want an overly large snake as a pet, or any snake for that matter. I hate them all.
Guy almost gets his testes bitten off
I'll never understand why anyone would want an overly large snake as a pet, or any snake for that matter. I hate them all.
Build more cell towers down there.
In all seriousness, I think we'll probably end up a way of combating them by making their eggs fail like colony collapse disorder.
Lizard with a ladder
learnin' with the blacks!
If it comes to that, I'm all for protecting an invasive species that can't kill me or my pets. Protect pythons? Hell no.
Offtopic - love your avatar kswiston, E.V.O. is such an underrated game.
Well I had a pet burmese python when I was 10 years old, and a girl.
He was a wonderful pet, and I loved him dearly. We ended up selling him to a snake breeder when he got too big to easily build a proper enclosure for him in the house.
Now I just have a blue-tongued skink and two uromastyxes, not that they would be happy living in the Everglades.
I'm sad that dumbasses are screwing up Florida with releasing invasive species, but it's hardly a snake specific problem. The US has been a mess for centuries now.
ProfessorMoran
Member
Not after the snake swallows you whole and shit you out.
Jesus, kill those damn things, they're not like dogs or cats, they're dumb as fuck and motivated only by the killer instincts nature gave them, they're not "cute" pets.
chaostrophy
Member
Snakes are no different than any other kind of pet- there are reasonably sized ones for sane people to keep. The problem is with the dumbasses that think it's so cool to own a big dangerous animal for a pet.
ProfessorMoran
Member
One should not keep any animal species that can't be domesticated or easily killed and eaten for a pet.
Thanks. One of my favourite 16-bit games. It makes me sad that Square-Enix never bothered releasing E.V.O. on Virtual Console.
It works out alright some of the time. Pheasants filled a niche that was largely open due to us killing off a lot of the game fowl in the eastern half of the continent. Pheasants are pretty to look at and are tasty. I am in favour of keeping them.
Pet dogs and livestock kill more people than pet snakes do. Cats cause a lot more ecosystem damage than all the invasive reptiles combined. Only the largest non-venomous snakes can seriously harm you. Banning like 10 species of constrictors would solve most of those problems. Of course, I don't believe in keeping poisonous snakes as pets, unless you have been licensed to house them.
Dude, you haven't lived until you've seen a huge (like... 6-8 foot) Diamond Back Rattlesnake sitting in the middle of the road on your way home. Or have had garter snakes dart through your legs while you jump in a startled panic outside before.
Like I did last summer
Or have had water moccasins near your door in the dark that you probably wouldn't have known about if you didn't turn the light on in time.
Like I did this fall
/Totally want to move to the Northwest, but too cold.
//So move to California, but they still have snakes and high cost of living.
///Fuck my life.
I know that feeling. The last thing I need to see is a fucking 30 foot snake that eats crocs crawling around my yard. I'd move to Africa or Australia if I wanted to deal with massive creatures and/or insects.
It'll be a dark day for this state when old people aren't the #1 most dangerous thing anymore.
they just seem like pointless exhibitions rather than pets
you cant take them out and play with them, or teach them tricks
just stationary stone cold killers for people to stare at, because they're solitary things.
I was super disappointed that I spent a full 4 months in Northern Florida swamps without seeing a single water moccasin. Granted half that time (Jan and Feb) was a bit cold. However, I looked daily in April with no luck. I saw 15-30 water snakes daily but no water moccasins.
I have horrible luck when it comes to seeing poisonous snakes though. I spent two weeks in the Amazon, and three weeks in Costa Rican forests. Between the two I saw a single emerald tree viper. Other people were seeing vipers 1-2 times a week.
Same applies to a lot of fish. Also, you can play with most non-venomous snakes. If they are used to being handled, they are typically quite docile. The constrictors also have to be quite big to hurt you. We used to host birthday parties at the zoo I worked at, and one of the "petting" reptiles was a docile 8" boa constrictor. At that size, even if they do start to constrict, you can peel them off.
I didn't know it was a water mocassin at the time, so I extremely lucked out opening the door and getting in the house without getting bitten at the time. So in retrospect it's funny, but still completely dangerous.
I hate snakes, so rattlers (which are rare around me and ben's area but still possible) and the like are scare me shitless on not knowing if they're going to kill me or not.
Nizz
Member
Biggest snake I've seen since I moved here to Florida are black racers, which aren't that big. It might have been the same one I saw two times out around the front area of the house. I also see Armadillos once in a while.
I pray that I never see a water moccasin around here. They did catch an alligator maybe 3-4 miles away. It was in a sewer drain out in front of a 7-Eleven. I think it was almost seven feet from head to tail.
titiklabingapat
Member
Too little too late for the ban, but fortunately many of the mammal species' that were wiped out are non-endangered species'. Hopefully they adapt soon and get a fear of these snakes so they can actively avoid them/defend themselves.
Any invader species 'eradication' program is a misnomer. Most of them, with a rare few exceptions will never truly go away once establsihed. Best you can do is to try and control the situation until the native species has a chance to adapt to the new variable.
Any invader species 'eradication' program is a misnomer. Most of them, with a rare few exceptions will never truly go away once establsihed. Best you can do is to try and control the situation until the native species has a chance to adapt to the new variable.
The Awesomest
Member
Should be bolded in OP. Impressive.
Most of the US snakes aren't poisonous enough to kill you unless you decide not to get treated. The bigger diamondbacks can be an exception. My former employer was bitten by one in the leg and spent a month in the hospital. He also developed pretty severe arthritis in that leg. It's been about 10 years since I was involved with reptiles (and I was most an amateur at the time. I switched to birds and then to more theoretical work when I was still in academia), but I have met a couple people who have been bitten by cobras and sea snakes. They have horror stories.
How the hell will a rabbit defend itself against a python!?
Do you not know how large these fuckers get!? These things are huger than most things in the Everglades with the exception of maybe a few Alligators that are wider/longer than they can digest.
kswiston said:
I don't want to get bitten by a snake ever in my life! That's one of my life goals to take with me to my grave: Didn't get bitten by wild snakes in Florida.
Makes me kind of wish I could release a couple pythons to live in my yard. Those stupid deer, raccoons, rabbits, and groundhogs that like to chomp on my garden would be toast. Snakes don't eat vegetables.
You know Disney will deal with the problem swiftly when the first one is spotted in Disney World.
"No, ma'am, this isn't authentic snake skin we're selling here in the Magic Kingdom."
Ya it is different though. Survival behaviors of feral cat prey still serve them pretty well unlike with this python fiasco.
At least where I live it isn't a problem. There are feral cats, but I still have a problem with mice/moles in my house during the winter. And, in the summer I have problems with squirrels destroying the car parked outside.
The case of the Stephen Island Wren:
April, 1892 - The Stephans Island Wren is discovered during the development of the island.
February, 1894 - Cats are introduced to Stephans Island.
March, 1895 - The Stephan Islands Wren is thought to be extinct.
It's a problem where you live, just not with those species. Mice breed incredibly fast to counteract the fact that they are the lowest rung on the vertebrate food chain. Same holds true for squirrels,and they are also harder to catch. Moles are mostly subterrarian.
It's the birds that suffer most. Most birds only have short breeding seasons, and their offspring require a lot of care. the majority of birds have to tend their nests for at least a month as their eggs gestate and their nestlings fledge. That is a long time to be tied to one spot. If they lose their nest, that is often their only chance to breed for the year. Considering most songbirds live 2-4 years, that may be their only chance to breed period. Cats are one of the few arboreal mammal predators (along with racoons and weasels) that can reach bird's nests in trees. Also, unlike weasels and racoons, cats are well adapted for catching and killing adult birds.
Cats have decimated a lot of bird populations in North America and worldwide.
Same is true for a lot of Hawaiian birds.
I used to work in pet stores. A LOT of people would, and no they never consider how big the thing will get, even when we tell them.
echoshifting
Banned
Personally I think you should have to have a license for anything larger than a ball python.
Yeah the situation with the birds in Hawaii is particularly depressing. They are/were such beautiful species.
Yeah the situation with the birds in Hawaii is particularly depressing. They are/were such beautiful species.
echoshifting
Banned
whoopsy. double post.
Ball pythons are pretty small (4 feet?) but I would agree that anything that gets to be much more than 6 feet should not be sold without a licence.
If I had to have a snake, I would get one of these:
Pretty to look at and relatively harmless. That one there looks to be full grown.
SouthernDragon
Member
Kill them all.
CrocMother
Banned
Said the snakes.
echoshifting
Banned
I will never forget the morning my python got out of his tank. I reached up to turn my alarm clock off and felt snake. He was just sitting there on top of the clock, watching me sleep. Probably because it was warm, but still
This is how we deal with pests in Louisiana. It is very effective.
Baraka in the White House
2-Terms of Kombat
I will never forget the morning my python got out of his tank. I reached up to turn my alarm clock off and felt snake. He was just sitting there on top of the clock, watching me sleep. Probably because it was warm, but still
Hah.
"Psst."
"Pssssst."
"Hey, you left the tank open, brah."
echoshifting
Banned
Vanillalite
Ask me about the GAF Notebook
I do wonder how the population is going to stay so high with them eradicating their food source so fast. I mean they like almost wiped out their food sources up to 99%. Wouldn't the population slowly die off without food sources to eat?
eudaemonic
Member
Man, that looks so gross.
Wonder how they taste.
bengraven
Member
Well I had a pet burmese python when I was 10 years old, and a girl.
He was a wonderful pet, and I loved him dearly. We ended up selling him to a snake breeder when he got too big to easily build a proper enclosure for him in the house.
Now I just have a blue-tongued skink and two uromastyxes, not that they would be happy living in the Everglades.
I'm sad that dumbasses are screwing up Florida with releasing invasive species, but it's hardly a snake specific problem. The US has been a mess for centuries now.
Eh, I wasn't serious posting. My uncle has a 6 foot python and he's a "man's man" type, so I was being funny. He tried calling me a pussy because I wouldn't let the python wrap itself around my 2 year old son at the time. A real man.
Oh yeah, like I've said before, we live right next to a canal. My neighbor across the canal told me to be careful while walking down to my boat dock, because the shore on my side is full of moccasins that sun themselves during the summer. "Yep, I done seen'm ever' year." I used to walk my kid down to the dock to feed the fish - no more.
We've seen a couple gators. While riding a boat down to our house we saw a huge moccasin as thick as my arm in some weeds. And I swear I saw a copperhead on my car port one night (thank God I had my light on like you said).
Yeah, for a non-snake person like I am, I'm living in the absolute wrong place. The next worse place would be the swamp itself.
evil solrac v3.0
Member
the real answer is to outright ban the so-called exotic pet trade. unless you're helping an endangered species, people have no business bringing animals from other environments and being so damn irresponsible. (and should also apply to owners who don't control their pets that hunt native species)
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