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Money Python: Florida Contest Offers Rewards In 2013 Everglades Python Hunt
Press2ToContinue writes "Dubbed the Python Challenge, the month-long contest will award $1,000 for the longest python and $1,500 for the most pythons caught between Jan. 12 and Feb. 10 in any of four hunting areas north of Everglades National Park and at the Big Cypress National Preserve. Pythons have been spreading through the Everglades for years, posing a threat to the sensitive ecosystem by preying on native species. Some estimates put their number in the tens of thousands. Last year, 272 pythons were removed from the wild, state figures show."
Looks like they're off to meet their makes.
Amongst our weaponry are such diverse elements as: fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope, and nice red uniforms - Oh damn!
Florida should read about the Cobra effect.
They should just put a bounty on the snakes like they used to do for wolves and mountain lions. $10 for each snake brought in would make an industry out of killing them. If we can drive species to extinction for profit surely we can eliminate these snakes. Make=ing it legal to sell snake meat would help too.
Made me think of the puzzle website I went through while learning the programing language. Any puzzle lovers out there interested can find it here http://www.pythonchallenge.com/ It can be done with little or no knowledge of the language as long as you don't mind reading the docs.
They're sort of... living legends... An alpha release snake.
Later species are much more streamlined, and have dropped some of their dual organs to make room. (Newer snakes only have one lung, for example. well - they usually have a second joke-sized vestigial lung as well). Fat snakes like pythons and boas have two, still.
Another neat thing about pythons is they have little.. claw like things, near their exhaust pipe. Remnants of their hind legs. :)
Reptiles lost in time...
I understand why they have to go in Florida (which seems hopeless at this point, anyhow), though.
The first time I saw a Burmese Python (like those in Florida) in person I was just amazed at the size of the thing... A snake that weighs more than me.
Sent from my PDP-11
How dare you bring Bing links onto Slashdot!
I feel dirty already.
$1500 for a month's worth of effort? I'll pass. That doesn't even put you above the poverty line.
The best thing about UDP jokes is I don't care if you get them or not
http://www.python.org/
Also very long python there ....
Did someone confuse Python for Python ?
Extra Points for "Profit!"
Why is Snark Required?
Said no one.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Won't work, the Everglades are too warm. They'd have to find something else to take care of the snake-eating gorillas.
And they get double rewards for convincing the captured programmer to start developing in PHP!
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
When I saw the article at first, I immediately thought this had to do with the Python programming language - since this is Slashdot. Boy, was I wrong. Hmmmm... Maybe the editor just saw the word 'python' and didn't actually read TFA? Probably, since this is Slashdot.
"Those beasts paled in comparison to Ming the tiger, who was discovered living in a Manhattan apartment in 2003. Ming's owner, Antoine Yates, unwittingly alerted police to the tiger's existence when he showed up at a hospital with deep bite marks on his leg. Hospital officials didn't believe the story that a dog had caused the bite. When police went to check Yates' apartment, they heard growling through the door." Cops also found (what else?) an alligator in the guy's apartment.
What's up with all these mudda-beeping snakes in this mudda-beeping swamp?
Oh Whacking Day
Oh Whacking Day
Our hallowed snake skull-cracking day
We'll break their backs
Gouge out their eyes
Their evil hearts we'll pulverize
Oh Whacking Day
Oh Whacking Day
May God bestow his grace on thee
How do you catch a python? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7967587.stm It helps they're nonvenomous
http://stephan.sugarmotor.org
Then I saw it was just snakes in The River of Grass. How come nobody is hunting them to extinction to make cowboy boots?
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
A few years ago I was doing some work in the Everglades National Park and during a pre-work briefing the Chief of Resource Management (person in charge of protecting everything) basically told us "if you see one of those snakes on the road, run it over and then back up over it to make sure".
Passionately Indifferent
Put a bounty on them, or at least let people kill as many as they wish. Requiring a permit to kill something you want to exterminate is stupid. Do you need a license to kill rats in Florida?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Did you not read the parent post about the "Cobra Effect"? $10 for a snake would not only make an industry out of killing them, it would create an industry of people who would start to breed snakes for profit.. and who would then let them go in to the wild if they were closed down.
They're invading our waters, more importantly reef habitats. The bigger fish haven't recognized them as prey yet as they gobble up all the smaller fish. My local dive shop is paying $5 a head for them and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation has issued an open season for them, no fishing license required. Good eatin from what I've heard. Tastes like hogfish, just use a paralyzer tip and cut the spines off without poking yourself.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
I guess I'm the only one who read that as, "Monty Python" Florida Contest Offers Rewards...."
1. Spark a hunting spree that has no hope of eradicating them.
2. Apply selective pressure to breed unhuntable pythons.
3. ???
4. Profit!
Or am I missing something?
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
Send in a Gatoroid. I'd say it's Syfylicious, but there aren't any WWE actors.
[Checked a mirror, yup, canines.]
I didn't choose, but I am an animal. By most definitions, yes, we are in fact animals. We have all the instincts of carnivores, an urge to stalk, an urge to hunt and yes, an urge to kill prey.
Now if I stalk around the house and pounce on things, my family looks at me a little funny because of society or whatever. But if I buy a permit and a bow and go after deer, that's totally acceptable.
If I'm wandering around the savanna in my PJs and get taken out by a pride of lions, then nobody is going to be blaming the lions, calling them gutless cowards, asking them how brave they're going to be when somebody kills them. They're lions, that's what they do and we're perfectly fine with that.
If anything, it's human hunters that are on the highroad here. We have rules about when and how we're allowed to kill other animals (and each other.) We're at the top of a food chain, and rather than just killing whatever we can, we restrict ourselves. I can't think of any other predator that does that. That's kind of an intelligent thing and telling a bunch of gun toting predators that they have to do things your way kind of takes guts.
So yeah, pretty much the opposite of everything you said. Wait, were you being deliberately ironic? It'd be funny if you'd included something that actually had ... well humor in it.
Spread a rumor that python meat is an aphrodisiac. They'll be extinct in no time.
Have gnu, will travel.
We have all the instincts of carnivores, an urge to stalk, an urge to hunt and yes, an urge to kill prey.
So what? We have animal instincts to mate whith anyone who can't fight us off, murder rivals or children if they're in the way and steal food or anything else if we want to. The whole point about civilisation is that we place limits on these things.
Anyway, there is no need or opportunity for most people to hunt for food, and most people who don't live in the countryside in fact have no interest in hunting.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
came for the freezing gorillas, wasn't disappointed.
somebody should build a python termination robot, they could call it the pythonator, and it should be programmed in python^W ruby.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
OOPK is a "real" thing.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
This will not slow down the snakes. Instead, they need some reason for hunters to continue going after them. The state would be wise to approach several tanneries within the state and offering to buy various products made with the python. These should be products that can and will be sold on the open market. The idea is to stimulate the tanneries to create sellable products with these and then allowing free enterprise to go after them.
The nice side effect of this, is that they are creating a number of jobs: tannery, local hunting, etc. as opposed to simply sending money to hunters who will then sell the hide to China.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I'll just leave this here.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Yup. Thanks for agreeing with me.
Just because people have urges to act like animals, doesn't mean we should. In fact we have rules and laws to keep us from giving into those urges. That was part of my point.
I suspect that you drew that one phrase from the larger context because you wanted to make the point that hunting and killing animals is bad, but rather you made the point that it is unnecessary because you prefer an honest tone instead of a belligerent one. I'd agree with you on both counts actually in most situations. Personally, I don't own a hunting gun (or bow) or hunt for sport because my environment (urban) doesn't make it a useful activity. But I add the qualifier "in most situations" because it isn't always true. You added the qualifier "most" as well and I suspect for the same reason.
The featured article is about the attempt to limit the damage of a non-native invasive species. In this particular instance, the only practical method of limiting the damage is to kill as many of the invasive animals as possible. I am not arguing that it is a good thing to kill them, but rather that in order to preserve the environment we treasure, it is an unfortunate necessity. I admit that I can see the appeal of hunting even if it isn't a strong appeal to me personally and therefore I can see how appealing to hunters to participate is a useful methodology.
I did grow up in a rural environment and was and remain exposed to many hunters. For many hunters, the actual kill is more of a proof of your skill as a hunter than a necessity, but it does provide the benefit of food for many of them. In trade for investments in time, getting a hunting license, requisite training and certification, and the necessary equipment, many of them provide a year's worth of meat for their families with their skills. I can also tell you from personal experience that the challenge of planning a hunt and the process of stalking is something that appeals to most of them. I actually managed to stalk within arms reach of a deer once, and it was thrilling. I had no desire or plan to kill anything because there was no benefit for me, yet the confirmation of my prowess and being able to see them so closely in the wild is one of my fonder memories.
That's a secondary point though. My first and hopefully less subtle point was that it is absurd to draw the conclusions or make the generalities found in the post I to which I was replying.