Report from the Florida python hunt

The Florida python hunt is shaping up to be just as cruel and pointless as any opponent could have predicted. From the Huffington Post:

The state of Florida this weekend unleashed a thrill-seeking public on the Burmese python, an invasive species that has set up house in the Florida Everglades and surrounding wildlife management areas over the past decade or so. [...] Based on results from the first weekend, a lot more people might need to sign up to appreciably diminish a python population estimated in the tens of thousands. By 4 p.m. today, hunters had turned in a total of 11 dead snakes to the wildlife commission. "I didn't see any snakes, much less Burmese pythons," Mark Reynolds of Seffner said this morning. "I saw plenty of alligators and birds and fish, but not a single snake of any kind." [...] The "harvesting" of snakes means killing them, and there are by-the-book ways to do that -- mostly a bullet into the top of the head. Decapitating the squirming beast is not really recommended, because, biologists say, the brain of a python remains active for hours even after it is separated from the rest of the body and experiences excruciating pain during that time.

Read the full article here. Photo: Huffington Post