motherjones:

washingtonpoststyle:

In other news, monster snakes are eating Florida.

This 16-foot Burmese python recently consumed a 76-lb adult female deer.

Photo via the AP

I actually have a lot of thoughts on this topic, because I worked on a documentary about this exact thing, but I won’t bore everyone with the “facts” because apparently no one else gives a shit about that.

Basically, pythons are mostly a problem for the native plants in South Florida, not as much a problem for the native animals, but no one gives a shit about plants. The python problem tends to be blown out of proportion by using extreme examples (like the one above) to scare everyone, when really people should just be concerned about bringing burmese pythons into the US to begin with.

The other thing that really pisses me off is that articles like this never really talk about the action that’s being taken. When I was down there I went to not only a training for Miami Dade firefighters and EMTs and paramedics on how to handle pythons when they get a call (because most of the time when someone spots one, they call 911, not animal control, because who the fuck has memorized animal control’s number), but also a training and certification day for Broward County hunters to legally hunt pythons. They actually found some pythons that day! And they were like, 2-3 feet long! Like most pythons are!

Unless the problem has wildly expanded from the Spring of 2010 (doubtful), everyone just needs to take a breath and sit down.