I have almost everything I need for the Great Florida Python Hunt, except a leg-man and a snake bag.
I have a hard hat with a mounted light, a tent, a flame thrower, food, pitchfork, gun, 12-pack of beer, big cooler, a truck, rope, lawyer and a map.
Time’s a wastin’. Before long, thousands of yeehaws from the Southeast will descend upon the Florida Everglades to take advantage of the bounty offered by the U.S. government for pythons – preferably dead.
According to news articles, about 150,000 Burmese pythons thrive in the Everglades. Formerly pets of South Florida residents, the snakes were released by their owners when they became too large. Understandable. Generally speaking, Burmese pythons aren’t house broken.
I don’t know how much the bounty will be for. I don’t know what agency is going to supervise the Great Florida Python Hunt or who’s going to give the order. Just count me in.
“While you’re down there, maybe you can take out some melaleuca,” said a news source for the Sierra Club.
I told him I’ll bring back melaleuca, an invasive Australian tree, as well as pythons.
“Tastes like chicken,” he said.
“Melaleuca?”
“No, pythons.”
An idea is born. I’ll be to pythons what Bubba Gump is to shrimp.
If all goes right, I’ll open a restaurant and serve fried python, boiled python, baked python, pickled python, barbecued python, python pie, python soup, python jerky, python a la mode, python tail, python juice.
First things first. Must be prepared.
While I was in North Florida recently, I stopped in a Wal-Mart to get some supplies.
“Excuse me, sir. Do you have any python bags?” I asked a store associate.
Blank looks, from he and an associate.
“The government is going to have a bounty hunt for pythons,” I said.
“Oh, you mean snake bags,” he said.
“That’s it – snake bags!”
“No, sir, I don’t think we have any of those.”
Note to self: invent snake bag.
Attempting to nail down details about the Great Florida Python Hunt has been difficult. I couldn’t find any information about it on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services’ Web site.
You can find out anything you want to know about the agency’s new duck stamps, but no advice on hunting the deadly Burmese python.
In fact, I tried calling the federal agency and couldn’t get in touch with anybody in Invasive Species.
Oh-oh. Maybe I’m too late. The feds have headed for the Everglades to organize the hunt.
Must get moving. My friend, Canadian John, has volunteered to be the leg- man. According to Canadian John, African trappers have devised a technique for catching pythons. It has something to do with a tribesman sticking his leg, wrapped in towels, in a deep hole in suspected python territory. When the snake bites the tribesman’s appendage – the leg – fellow hunters yank him out of the hole, snake in tow. Then they hack the snake to bits with a machete.
Using Google search, I typed in “stick leg in hole to catch python,” and, lo and behold, Canadian John was right; a Web site showed a video of this technique being used in Africa.
“He’s biting his whole leg off,” said fellow editor, Tom Michalski, watching it in the newsroom. We couldn’t pay Michalski enough to go along, even if he only has to hack melaleuca.
You are probably wondering why we need a snake bag if we’re going to chop up pythons and temporarily store them in coolers. The reason is, we need to bring back a live specimen to put on display in our new restaurant – to assure customers that they are actually eating Burmese python and not chicken. And if the customers complain about the food ...
Actually, I think Canadian John and I are too old to be partaking of Everglades snake hunts.
We’ll be the supervisors. Supply the beer.
All we need is an experienced python trapper. We’ll pay big bucks – just to have a leg up on the competition.
Shucks, I don’t think I will have enough time before the hunt to make a snake bag.
My snipe bag will have to do.
Tom Germond is Tampa Bay Newspapers executive editor and editor of the Largo Leader and Dunedin Beacon
