Python hunt! To help thin the population of escaped-and-released pythons that, apparently, threaten to take over the Everglades. (Pets-gone-awry must be the most destructive category of animals on the planet—after people, of course.) It’s worth clicking through for the photo alone.

“If you’re in there hunting, and you see a python, you can kill it,”‘ Hardin said.

Hunters have used nets and snares and guns to subdue the reptiles, but all legal hunting methods are allowed, including bang sticks, harpoons and spear guns.

Bang sticks?

Wikipedia sez: aka “powerheads” (this whole story’s one long double entendre) bang sticks are guns designed for firing underwater, when in direct contact with the target.

Although most commercial powerheads use standard handgun ammunition, such as .357 Magnum or .44 Magnum, the bullet has little or no effect on the killing power of the bang stick. The muzzle blast does the damage, as much high-pressure gas is forced into the flesh of the target. Blank cartridges can produce fatal wounds when fired in or near contact, and they work well in powerheads

And, for a little Thursday morning etymology:

python
1590, the fabled serpent, slain by Apollo, near Delphi, from L. Python, from Gk. Python, probably related to Pytho, the old name of Delphi, perhaps itself related to pythein “to rot.” Zoological application to large non-venomous snakes of the tropics is from 1836, originally in Fr.

pythoness
late 14c., “woman with the power of soothsaying,” from O.Fr. phitonise (13c.), from L.L. pythonissa, used in Vulgate of the Witch of Endor (I Sam. xxviii. 7), and often treated as her proper name, lit. fem. of pytho “familiar spirit;” which ultimately is connected with the title of the prophetess of the Delphic Oracle, Gk. pythia hiereia, from Pythios, an epithet of Apollo, from Pytho, older name of the region of Delphi (see python).

Brend an Kiley has worked as a child actor in New Orleans, as a member of the junior press corps at the 1988 Republican National Convention, and, for one happy April, as a bootlegger’s assistant in Nicaragua....

15 replies on “Ain’t that Florida?”

  2. PBS has been running an excellent documentary on Monty Python.

    People who own or want to own exotic pets should have their organs harvested.

  3. We have made this world so much worse. Thank god for the forward thinking wisdom of the people who fought tooth and nail for the national parks. Little slivers of a world unmolested by humans.

  4. Holy Jeebus! That snake is huge. Pretty scary to think that those things are a-slithering around out there. Reminds me how of much I love the PNW.

  9. Wasn’t there a Mythbusters where they demonstrated that the ammo is essentially useless once you have about 3 feet of water between you and the gun? I plan to bank on that someday!

    Sounds like there is a new mythbusters episode (or two) in this post!

  12. They estimate ten of thousands of pythons in the Everglades and are pleased they caught 37? Hell, I pissed in the ocean the other day and made the sea level rise!

  14. Can you imagine if they did this to feral cats and dogs in cities?

    That’s just mean. I guess we are agains evolution taking its course. We must save those on the way out and kill those on the way in.

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