Re: Re: frogs, now Lynx

When we bought this house, everyone involved worked, so we had an early AM closing. 7 AM as I recall. It was February and quite foggy in downtown Venice. We parked the car and began walking to the attorney's office--only to discover, laying in a heap on the sidewalk, the freshly shed skin of a 14-foot Burmese python. We gathered up the skin, still very soft and pliable, and put it in the trunk of our car.

A year or two later, my grandson came to visit, and we took him to Sarasota Jungle Garden, one of those old-time tourist traps where you can have your picture taken while you hold a 3-foot alligator. I took the snake skin and asked the resident herpetologist to ID it [that's how I know it was a Burmese python]. I told him where we had found it, and he said something like "We get about three calls a week from people all over this county who discover these snakes in trees and want us to come and get them. Lots of times, the snakes are gone by the time we get there. But if you look in the snake house, you'll see we've got about 40 of them--all 'rescues'."

Almost all of the so-called "circuses" based in Sarasota--maybe 8 or 9 all told--have snake handling acts with Burmese pythons. Apparently, in spite of their fearsome size, they are rather tractable and make nice pets.

On Aug 12, 2006, at 5:07 PM, TeichFlora@aol.com wrote:

No joke. Saw a piece on CNN the other day about the Pythons in the
Everglades that are actually breeding. National Geographic channel this week is
having a special on gators and pythons ruling the Everglades. Apparently the
snakes were former pets, but now they are multiplying and naturalizing. So many
unwanted pets are released into the wild after the owners no longer can care
for them.
Noreen
zone 9
Texas Gulf Coast

In a message dated 8/11/2006 8:03:25 PM Central Standard Time,
gardenchat-owner@hort.net writes:

We must be the pet abandonment capital of the world.

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Island Jim
Southwest Florida
27.0 N, 82.4 W
Hardiness Zone 10
Heat Zone 10
Minimum 30 F [-1 C]
Maximum 100 F [38 C]

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