Florida hosts python hunting challenge

I’m sort of surprised that “Killing It” hasn’t received more coverage and attention. It is really good. It will probably end up on lots of lists of underrated/overlooked tv at the end of the year.

Killing It I See You GIF by PeacockTV

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I can’t remember if we’ve already talked about this, but do you read Hiassen? Squeeze Me made good use of the invasive pythons. :slight_smile:

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looove carl hiassen! don’t know how that one got by me.
thanks. will search it out!

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No spoilers, but anticipate Mar a Lago being featured. And “the governor” is back!

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Putting it on a prize basis, rather than piecework, seems like a particularly unsurprising-but-unpleasant bit of ‘gamification’.

At least collecting cans assures you a $.05 payout per unit; not just a shot at the 2022 ‘Cart Higher/Cart Harder!’ homeless sweepstakes…

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Evidently python hunting is very hard. There are state programs that capture and collar a female python, and then release it and track it so that they can find it again and capture the males attracted to her. But even when knowing the female python is withing about 10 feet of where they are standing, they can be hard to recapture.

My dad has spent most of his life working against invasive species in Kansas. Mostly of the plant variety. Now the Bradford Pear and Honey Suckle are two trees/bushes that went from pretty decorative to choking out native species nuance.

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Yes. I remember reading about a state-sponsored hunt a few years back and the results, in terms of pythons ‘eradicated,’ were pretty lackluster.
It seems like programs supporting the native (non human) predator populations might be more effective. Not sure if they’re trying that, though.

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There aren’t many things in the glades that can/will kill a python. The bigger ones have been photographed as being too big for a gator to deal with, and there are also shots of pythons trying to swallow a gator and bursting open from the effort, or maybe the gator wasn’t really dad but just resting when the snake started…

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So decoy gators filled with explosives for the win? :wink:

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I like the way you think.

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Realistically, I wonder if recordings of infant humans or animals might help? How good is constrictor hearing?

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Or pressure sensors and spring-loaded spikes…

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Ah, now you’re getting into Monty Python territory. Everybody remembers Spring Surprise, right?

ETA: link to video and to correct spelling of spring-loaded

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Also, providing a cash prize for the most pythons caught provides an incentive for people to start breeding pythons for later capture.

Removing invasive species is a complex problem.

ETA:

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I thought the Bag-o-Glass was an SNL thing?

Dan Aykroyd Snl GIF by Saturday Night Live

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‎Claudia O’Doherty’s having a helluva year: Killing It AND Our Flag Means Death!

Or pressure sensors and CO2 cartridgers. Blow the snake up like a ballonn, so it can’t hide underwater & is easy to find. If the snake explodes, that’s one less mouth that feeds.

A ten-day hunt makes no sense. If they are that big of a problem {and they are], then put a bounty on 'em and/or put 'em on the menu.

Everglades Tube Steak! Num! Num!

Do you want velociraptors? Cause this is how we get velociraptors.

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Then we could train the velociraptors to hunt pythons. The best part of this plan is there will be no unintended consequences.

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What if the velociraptors end up not liking the taste of python? Here in Queensland cane toads were introduced in the middle of the last century to deal with a problem with grubs in sugar cane crops. The cane toads eat most things but the cane grubs. They are now spreading into the Northern Territory and New South Wales, having devastated small native mammals, amphibians, reptiles and birds as they are poisonous.

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