The headline 'Python explodes after swallowing 6 foot alligator' caught my eye. I have held pythons and been equally enamored and shudderingly fearful.
I spent some amazing formative young years in Malaysia (Malaya as it was then) and my relationship with snakes, geckos and spiders began as I clambered through bush and jungle that sat, literally, at the edge of our manicured yard. We lived in a new housing development on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur on Guillemard Valley Road and one of my most vivid memories is of hearing my mother let out a blood curdling scream as she watched me saunter along the road right into the path of a Krait. 'JILL. STOP!' Ordinarily my mother yelling at me to stop doing something was pretty ineffectual, but there was something about this command. I stopped. The snake, sensing movement, darted across inches from me, as I stood transfixed by this beautiful and entirely deadly resident, whose neighbourhood the developers had so crudely invaded. I remember finding a young tiny cobra yards from the house and happily bringing it into the kitchen. I'm not sure exactly what my Mum did, but I never did that again.
So, I definitely understand the fascination with the exotic, especially snakes. But honestly, I don't see the beauty in playing house with these completely wild creatures in a 3 bedroom ranchette in Key West - or anywhere else. Snakes simply don't belong in glass houses. And the mammoth industry in exotic snakes and reptiles leaves me saddened and angered. On two occasions recently large boas have been found in Berkeley's Aquatic Park (which is a fancy name for a pretty mediocre and under maintained park by the freeway). Both snakes were once pets and presumably abandoned or simply dumped by owners who thought that the snakes would find plenty of entertainment and food, crusing the tent encampments of the homeless, snagging rodents or young birds. Both were 'impounded' by animal control and at least one died of a nasty contagious fungal condition which made it hard for the creature to eat.
While on the surface there isn't much comparison between the importation, breeding and sale of exotic species and the millions of domestic animals that end up in animal shelters each year - there is one primary similarity. Us. The human incapacity to gauge the consequences of our actions. The same attitude which says it's ok to throw your unwanted sofa by the side of the road because you can't be freakin' bothered to take it to the dump and pay the $10 fee. The same mindset that says 'hey, I think I'll just throw my baby's used diaper out the car window in the parking lot of my local park'. The very same thinking that generated the 140 ads on the local Craigslist for unwanted chihuahuas last week. Someone else will always pick up your waste. Right? It's the same sickness, uniquely human, which has created the Burmese Python pandemic in Florida. Now that is a real pandemic. Over 150,000 Burma Pythons have been imported for sale in the United States. They are young, fairly small when sold but these fantastic snakes can grow to be 250 pounds and up to 20 feet long. And an enormous number of them have been thrown from cars and these giants have now become a threat to many endangered species including the Florida Panther and the wood stork. And of course to the less endangered Fifi or Sophie - your poodle or Siamese cat.
So, the headline about the exploding python and the photos that went with the article about the python whose eyes were bigger than it's substantial stomach got me thinking about why it is that we simply have to have whatever it is we want. And then, just as quickly, don't want anymore. And the number of non native species that we have imported purely for fun and then discarded over the last two hundred years and which have changed the native face of this land forever.
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