A python hunting competition starting on Saturday is drawing hundreds of amateurs armed with clubs, machetes and guns to theFlorida Everglades

What an snake hunter with a club may look like

The Everglades is not a typical hunting ground. Both the flora and the fauna are dangerous and slogging through saw grass up to you arse in  swamp water takes a lot out of you. This has been a warm winter, so the bugs are a factor too.

I got one, I got one!

*nggggggghhhh*

One gots me!  One gots me!  Little help?

I'm really looking forward to Sunday's aftermath reports. We're gonna wear the pixels off the Florida tag! :-)

Paris1127: A python hunting competition starting on Saturday is drawing hundreds of amateurs armed with clubs, machetes and guns to theFlorida Everglades
[deniseduvernay.files.wordpress.com image 455x348]
What an snake hunter with a club may look like

never realized how much their snake drawing skills resembled mr burns and kearney before :P

dogdaze: The Everglades is not a typical hunting ground. Both the flora and the fauna are dangerous and slogging through saw grass up to you arse in  swamp water takes a lot out of you. This has been a warm winter, so the bugs are a factor too.

I used to paddle a kayak in the 'Glades all the time and never had any problem with bugs. never could figure out why (and didn't care).

/Sawgrass hurts, lemme tell ya

Look at them, wasting all that good meat.

Yeah...I got your python **crotchgrab** RIGHT HERE!

Tampa has 24 inch pythons.

God... 500 people enter... 50 leave... It ain't the pythons you need to worry about skippy.. You tenderfeet are gonna get yo' ass chomped by a gator, bit by a moccasin, or cut yourself to ribbons on sawgrass..

Please Darwin and God.. Rain fire down upon these dumbasses...

metallion: God... 500 people enter... 50 leave... It ain't the pythons you need to worry about skippy.. You tenderfeet are gonna get yo' ass chomped by a gator, bit by a moccasin, or cut yourself to ribbons on sawgrass..

Please Darwin and God.. Rain fire down upon these dumbasses...

If ever there was an excuse for a reality TV show it has to be this.

I'm honestly shocked that we didn't get a Fark team together for this event. This seems like the kind of stupidity that is right up our alley.

FWC spokeswoman Carli Segelson said the number of registered contestants reached about 500 this week and was growing, with people coming from 32 states.

I read that as "white people coming..."

Probably not too far off.

But the idea of luring weapon-wielding amateurs into the harsh environment of the Everglades has raised some alarms.



Alarms? no. Hopes of some awesome footage to laugh with great gusto at? Oh hell ya.

/cant laugh too hard, we have had a rattlesnake roundup every year in Texas since 1958.

Eddie Bauer probably has one heck of a python hunter clothing line sale this week.....

Not sure why we're being so harsh on the hunters....anything that helps curb an invasive species like that should be appreciated by the granola munching tree hugging variety on Fark. Many native species have all but disappeared in the wake of the pythons in the swamp - deer, foxes, rabbits, birds, etc.

Probably not as good as a great cat massacre.

I would be most worried about the cottonmouths, they are territorial. Growing up down there, those scared me the most. My dad had one drop down from a bridge right next to him, the thing went out of it's way to try to attack him for being in its home turf....

/shudders

purple helmet: Not sure why we're being so harsh on the hunters....anything that helps curb an invasive species like that should be appreciated by the granola munching tree hugging variety on Fark. Many native species have all but disappeared in the wake of the pythons in the swamp - deer, foxes, rabbits, birds, etc.

This

/no way I would do it

I'm not going to waste my time arguing with a man who's lining up to be a hot lunch.

Autarky: I would be most worried about the cottonmouths, they are territorial. Growing up down there, those scared me the most. My dad had one drop down from a bridge right next to him, the thing went out of it's way to try to attack him for being in its home turf....

/shudders



As long as you go with a Hattori Hanzo katana through their entire yakuza gang, things wouldn't be that tough...

brandent: metallion: God... 500 people enter... 50 leave... It ain't the pythons you need to worry about skippy.. You tenderfeet are gonna get yo' ass chomped by a gator, bit by a moccasin, or cut yourself to ribbons on sawgrass..

Please Darwin and God.. Rain fire down upon these dumbasses...

If ever there was an excuse for a reality TV show it has to be this.

You obviously don't get the National Geographic channel.

Why don't the alligators eat them?

Infidel defilers... they shall drown in lakes of blood.

Now they will know why they are afraid of the dark. Now they will learn why they fear the night."

so Florida gets one snake that isn't venomous and they have to wipe it out? What the hell guys?

so many assumptions the organizers are making!

/should end well.

Dahnkster: [i.imgur.com image 794x625]
Tampa has 24 inch pythons.

Here's a fun game for everyone, brother!

"Which one's the daughter!"

Nogale: Why don't the alligators eat them?

Some alligators do, but the gators aren't natural predators. The python, on the other hand, will eat alligators, no problem.

Sounds like a good time to me. I've spent some time out there in the swamps.

If ever there was an excuse for a reality TV show it has to be this.

I don't have time to RTFA. I'm off to Photoshop the results.

Non-Florida is boooooring.

Naples resident here. Reminds me of a story from a couple of years ago. This city slicker was lost in the swamp for 5 days, stripped down to his undies (why?), drank swamp water, ate raw catfish, and basically lost his mind...and all the while he was about 3/4 of a mile from one busiest highways in the country. Fully expecting a repeat of this incident to occur with all these wannabe Steve Irwins on the job.

Link

Jim from Saint Paul: Dahnkster: [i.imgur.com image 794x625]
Tampa has 24 inch pythons.

Here's a fun game for everyone, brother!

"Which one's the daughter!"

The orange one?

EKU Colonel: I'm honestly shocked that we didn't get a Fark team together for this event. This seems like the kind of stupidity that is right up our alley.

No couches
No keyboards
No boobies
No Cheetoes
No dice

"Which one's the daughter!"

Who cares, I'd jump them both. Talk about being built for tit f-----g.

//just saying

metallion: God... 500 people enter... 50 leave... It ain't the pythons you need to worry about skippy.. You tenderfeet are gonna get yo' ass chomped by a gator, bit by a moccasin, or cut yourself to ribbons on sawgrass..

Please Darwin and God.. Rain fire down upon these dumbasses...

Why? Don't you *WANT* the Everglades to be habitat for anything other than Burmese Pythons?

Nogale: Why don't the alligators eat them?

Because some of them are big enough to (try to) eat gators.

coinspinner: Nogale: Why don't the alligators eat them?

Because some of them are big enough to (try to) eat gators.

This time with an image...

"I was hoping there would be a lot of machetes and not a lot of guns," said Polster, the retired salesman. He said he worries "these idiots will be firing all over the place."

So I guess in his retirement, he became a ninja. Because I would think if you plan to sneak, in dense swamp, up on a 150lb apex predator and dispatch it with a quick machete chop you must be a ninja.

Or an idiot.

Not sure which this guy is.

I am so rooting for the pythons.

Hopefully, the swamp, gators, rattlesnakes, cougars and rabid bobcats will take some of these idjits, too.

On one hand it sucks that they have to do these kinds of hunts. But, what can you do when animals that are not indigenous to the area start eating all the ones that are?

I'm just glad that no one has taken this approach on the non-indigenous humans that just walk in and kill everything that is indigenous. Well, I guess they have tried in the past. But we have better guns.

Where was I? Oh yeah... Don't be an idiot when you buy a snake. Know how big it will get. And don't set the damn thng free when you can't take care of it any longer. Either kill it yourself, of donated it to a zoo.

Man, people are stupid.

Hell, by the looks of them, they will all die off in a few years.

dj_spanmaster: Look at them, wasting all that good meat.

The apex predators in the 'glades (gators, these snakes, etc) typically have 3x the "safe if you only eat fish 2 or 3 times a year" levels of mercury in their flesh than the large ocean going fish like tuna, salmon, etc.

purple helmet: Many native species have all but disappeared in the wake of the pythons in the swamp....

"Eats Aardvarks, Ants, Bears, Boars, Cats, Bats, Dogs, Hogs, Elephants, Antelopes, Pheasants, Ferrets, Giraffes, Gazelles, Stoats, Goats, Shoats, Ostriches, Octopuses, Penguins, People, Warthogs, Yaks, Newts, Walruses, Gnus, Wildebeests."

so whats the betting for how long after the start of the contest will the first human fatality occur?

real_headhoncho: [nymag.com image 560x315]
Hell, by the looks of them, they will all die off in a few years.


/ShutYourWhoreMouth

dj_spanmaster: Nogale: Why don't the alligators eat them?

Some alligators do, but the gators aren't natural predators. The python, on the other hand, will eat alligators, no problem.

I don't understand how this works. Aren't gators aggressive and fast? Do they just lie around while a python snuggles up and starts constricting?

i.r.id10t: dj_spanmaster: Look at them, wasting all that good meat.

The apex predators in the 'glades (gators, these snakes, etc) typically have 3x the "safe if you only eat fish 2 or 3 times a year" levels of mercury in their flesh than the large ocean going fish like tuna, salmon, etc.

Look at us, poisoning all that good meat.

HailRobonia: purple helmet: Many native species have all but disappeared in the wake of the pythons in the swamp....

"Eats Aardvarks, Ants, Bears, Boars, Cats, Bats, Dogs, Hogs, Elephants, Antelopes, Pheasants, Ferrets, Giraffes, Gazelles, Stoats, Goats, Shoats, Ostriches, Octopuses, Penguins, People, Warthogs, Yaks, Newts, Walruses, Gnus, Wildebeests."

And Rabbits. Especially Rabbits.

/Python Skin Boots: Price US $279.95

Nogale: dj_spanmaster: Nogale: Why don't the alligators eat them?

Some alligators do, but the gators aren't natural predators. The python, on the other hand, will eat alligators, no problem.

I don't understand how this works. Aren't gators aggressive and fast? Do they just lie around while a python snuggles up and starts constricting?

Well, gators are pretty lazy. Their offense is opportunity sneak attack based. And their defense ... well, you saw what happened in the bowl.