Friday, January 22, 2010
Snakes On A Boat
We interrupt this program to bring you this STC special. [Update-photo finally loaded, scroll to see!]
If you have been paying attention, at all, you probably are aware that I work in the Everglades driving airboats. Now that we’ve established that everyone is on the same page, let me tell you a little story.
Some of you may have heard that we have a real bad snake problem down here...pythons, to be exact. And that would be true. We do have a big problem with pythons down here. I won’t go in to a rant about the asshole people who have caused this to be a problem, (along with iguana, dogs, cats and other sorts of animals dumped out here), because that’s not what this story is about and frankly, that rant would go on for days. Right now, I have a headache and I’d like to remain calm.
Why do I have a headache, you ask? Well, for one, it was a bit on the warm side today and when you add in physical exertion to that mix, some of us get headaches. Physical exertion? Yes.
See, there I was, on tour, giving said tour, minding my own business when suddenly a tourist pointed to the right hand side of the channel. I looked and looked and could not figure out at what he was looking. He asked, “Did you see the snake?!”, all excited. I was expecting to see some tiny ass banded water snake or something so I looked again, this time for a snake and holy shit what did I see but a huge ass Burmese python sitting there.
If you are in the Everglades and you happen upon a python, please call Fish and Game so that they can come out and get it. The reason for that is because these snakes EAT all of the native animals around here: birds, snakes, fish, alligators, etc. We don’t want them here.
I finished the tour and about two hours later was finally able to go out with a co-worker to see if the snake was still there and if we could catch it. We got in to the area and it didn’t take us long at all to find it. The thing is huge. I turned the boat around and we got as close to the chunk of land, (at the base of a pond apple tree...the root system), the snake was on. I held the boat in place while my co-worker searched for the head, found the head and then grabbed his snake clip thingies to hold the head so that we could drag the snake in to the boat.
Problem was, this snake was way too big for his tools so the grip was lost and the snake went in to the water. We thought we had lost it and were a little bummed. But, the snake eventually hit the side of the boat and naturally turned away from it causing it to swim right next to the boat.
My co-worker reached in to the water and grabbed the snake by the back end and pulled it part way in to the boat. My job was to take those snake clip thingies and clamp around his head when I saw the head.
Oh and I saw the head. I saw the head when the snake came flying up out of the water with its mouth open in our direction and hissing at us, ready to bite us. That was rather unsettling as this snake’s head is about the size of my hand.
I grabbed on with the clamp thingies but again, they were not designed for a snake this size so the snake easily slid out of them. At this point my co-worker told me to take the back end while he searched for the business end. I grabbed the back end of the snake and hauled some of it back in to the boat while my co-worker had his hand in the water looking for the head.
Kids...this was one strong ass snake. It started to wrap itself around my wrist and arm and was actually dragging me out of the boat in its fight to free itself from us. I told my co-worker, “I’m losing the snake...I’m losing the snake!” He’s yelling, “Hold on! Let me get the head!” I’m thinking, “DUDE! I’m not going in to the water with this fucking thing!”
Just when I thought I could not fight this thing any longer and I was going to lose my grip, he found the head. We hauled it in to the boat and started to play the game of, ‘let’s stuff it in to this plastic bag’. At first we tried to get the tail end in first but that wasn’t working out so well so my co-worker got the snake’s head in to the bag and held him down to the floor of the boat while I tried to stuff the rest of him in to the bag. The tail was easy. It was the rest of the girth that was a struggle. Not only was this snake heavy, he was strong!! I was trying to fold part of him to get him in the bag and he was not budging an inch.
After much fighting, struggling and yelling at the snake, (because yelling usually does the trick, “Oh! You want me in the bag? Well why didn’t you just say so!? You don’t have to yell at me!"), we got most of him in the bag. That was when my co-worker let go of the head.
Apparently I leaped over two rows of seats in a single bound when he said, “I don’t have the head anymore”. By this time though, it didn’t really matter because it was pretty much in the bag and he just tied it up. I stepped back to the driver’s seat and we came back to the dock where all our other co-workers jealously investigated our catch.
Our live catch.
Our 13 foot live Burmese python catch.
With our bare hands.
Not a single bite.
We made a phone call and tomorrow someone is coming out to destroy it. Now look...I don’t like killing animals when I’m not eating them. I have a real problem with that and I don’t feel good about this impending death either. HOWEVER, if we do not get rid of that snake, it will eat all sorts of wildlife out there, including alligators. This snake is big enough to consume a 5 foot alligator. And the area this snake was in, we have Purple Gallinules there, turtles, baby alligators, young alligators...all kinds of stuff in this particular area that this snake would easily have snacked on. In fact, two Purple Gallinules who enjoy our company were only about 15 feet away from this snake when we found it again to capture it. So, while I don’t like it, I understand it.
What I do like, though, is that I have a live capture of a 13 foot (estimated), Burmese python under my belt while most of the guys I work with have only caught dead ones or little ones. Some of them have issues with that and that brings me great joy.
