Among all of the other action on the Hill today was the introduction of a bill to stop roving, hungry python invaders.
Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.) introduced the Stopping Non-Native Animals from Killing Endangered Species (SNAKES) Act, which would implement a pilot program to use specially trained dogs to detect Burmese pythons and other non-native constrictor reptiles that are ravaging native wildlife throughout the Everglades.
“It is estimated to now hold tens of thousands of pythons that are devastating natural wildlife and endangered species living in the Everglades. In some instances, mammal populations are down 90 percent from just a few years ago,” Hastings said.
While emphasizing that the python-sniffing dogs are taken out of harm’s way before they can be eaten, the congressman highlighted Auburn University EcoDogs that can cover more distance with a greater accuracy rate in some scenarios than human snake-hunters.
The SNAKES Act authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to work with stakeholders to establish this detection program full-time.
“Once the dog indicates that a snake is in the area, it is taken a safe distance away while a human handler captures the snake. This way, the dogs never approach the snakes and are never placed in a position of danger,” Hastings said. “This dog detection team is a great tool that can help prevent what has happened in the Everglades from happening elsewhere in the United States, as well as assist in containing the snakes populations that are already out there.”
as instapundit says: if it taste good eat it.
Just put a bounty on the damn things and step aside.
But a bounty would benefit those who are clinging bitterly to their guns, and heaven knows, we CERTAINLY don’t want to be doing THAT.
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Exactly. AND allow the bounty hunters to keep the carcasses for food and sell the skins for extra $$$.
I AM TIRED OF THESE MOTHERF***ING SNAKES IN THIS MOTHERF***ING STATE!!!
This is such a F***ING FARCE!!! I have had it up to here watching the Discovery Channel show with these FL State bureaucrats-in-cargo-pants with their white SUV’s with the cool decals get paid (no doubt) $70k per annum with full medical and benefits to delicately lasso a handful of scaly bruisers then take them to some goat-shtupping petting zoo!
Fred-M is right, just offer a forty-buck bounty per head then get the hell out of the way. Amos Moses and Jose Jimenez would grab their baseball bats and machetes, pull on their hip waders, hop into their pickups and sort this problem out inside of six weeks, cheap. I’ve seen these nature shows and I can’t think of any critter so stupid, sluggish, and easy to kill.
Will somebody in the know please get on the horn to Jeb Bush and tell him to quit fiddle-dicking around? Considering the economy I can see gold in them, thar hides and meat.
Yeah, you call up Jeb Bush about that …. he’s probably the one who bought them the SUV’s and raised the salary to 80K. Expecting RINO’s to bring you liberty is a losers game.
Not a job I’d recommend for the puppacita.
The problem of these pythons been around for a very long time, though it was first seen — oddly enough — out West.
If you know American folklore, you’ll recall the old cowboy song: “Burmese Not On The Lone Prairie”.
Excellent
*unmanly blush*
Would Alcee Hastings like to volunteer to go into the swamp and “capture” a hungry python?
Perhaps the good Representative knows precisely how to tickle one under the chin.
Buy me a telephoto lens and I’d video it for YouTube.
Maybe the pythons can bribe him to withdraw it — he was impeached & removed from his federal judgeship over bribery.
Oh, that’s why he’s such a snake expert. Takes one to know one.
Alcee would make excellent Burmese bait.
Just tell them those pythons are conservatives or libertarians and they’ll all be dead in two days.
C’mon, guys, be fair. Even Alcee Hastings may be able to recognize a real problem when there is one, and the pythons do seem to be a real problem.
However, one solution is to enact legislation to create a bureaucracy which will need administrators, office space, affirmative action hiring, training programs, oversight committees, and lots of new jobs for public sector unions. The other solution, as mentioned above, is to put a bounty on the damn things, and let them train their own dogs.
The latter would probably deal with the problem more quickly and at least as effectively. That’s why no government would enact it.