Snake phobia and killing pythons

Researchers stretch out alongside Florida-record Burmese python. Photo courtesy of the University of Florida

Python is a harmless reptile that lives in woods especially in South Asia. But its size is so enormous that the man who is generally snake phobic may be terrified. There are lots of fiction about pythons swallowing men alive. This fiction has extended to internet graphics also.

I have lived with a python when I was in a torture center in 1989 era. The python was used to frighten the prisoners to get them to divulge information. But it was an innocent creature. Very rarely it bit like a cat when it was extremely hungry as it was not given food.

The python was kept in a box and an old prisoner was trained to feed it with eggs and meat stuffed forcibly into the mouth gaped with the use of two sticks. I think the keeper, one fine day, kept the lid of the box half open and let the creature escape.

Python is a specie under threat of extinction in Sri Lanka. It is a pity that the people tend to kill this reptile when they see it in their environment.

Today I read a story about a man being honored for killing a massive python in Florida. The serpent is called a Burmese python.

Americans, perhaps who went to war brought this specie from Asia to be kept as pet. Now they have escaped to environment and become a threat to wildlife.

In Florida, where they’ve been released as pets and escaped from wildlife facilities, there are thousands of them, mostly within the Everglades ecosystem.

As such a large and voracious invasive species, they’re a threat to native wildlife. The state would like to eradicate them, if that were possible.

Read the story.