Few Reptiles to Stombotomize

For your information, none of the pythons shown in this Ramblin’ are entries in the challenge!  They were all previous captures.

A stombotomy performed on the snake pictured above revealed it had consumed a small alligator. Ha, ha!! These big snakes, in the neighborhood of 16 feet, will eat almost anything. Last January, a report by the U.S. Geological Survey showed pythons had dropped raccoon and opossum populations by 99 percent in Everglades National Park. There were no rabbits or foxes left in the area. Without any natural predators, the snake’s population has ballooned. The latest estimates put the number at 100,000 slithering in the park. A stombotomy performed on the python below exposed a 76 pound deer without horns. The snake was just lucky, I’m guessing. The old guy looks like someone I know back in Rocklin. But it’s not him.

May I digress please? Thank you!

Hey Rene Tucson, would you relay a message to Wetto from me, please? I’m thanking you in advance! Thank You!

 “Hey Wetto, I am sorry to inform you that the python meat in question contains high levels of mercury and nitrates that exceed those recommended for human consumption. That may or may not affect your decision to purchase all the available meat through me for inclusion in your café’s hot dogs. If you think the tainted meat will improve the taste and/or quality of your dogs, I will be happy to process the order and prepare it for transport. I am anxiously awaiting your response, as I would very much like to do business with you. I am retired you know! Thank you”!

Even though I am not a democrat, I also am not averse to feathering my pockebook by taking advantage of an unfortunate situation that pops up. The chemical contamination of the reptile meat is just a bump in the road, not a pot hole.

May I regress please? Thank you!

Hunters turning in dead pythons to the authorities must submit a data form and may state in the comments section they want the skin returned to them after the University of Florida scientists perform the stombotomy and record other scientific data. The stombotomy is performed to determine what the creature consumed for its last meal. I thought I would be able to get the skins directly from the University for nothing and sell them to Tony Lama over in El Paso. Now I find out I will have to deal with each hunter individually and they will be expecting payment based on skin size and quality. I can visualize them dickering like a used car salesman. Hey Roy Roseville, ‘dickering’ is the art of bargaining or agreeing on a price. I thought you would like to know.

A reliable source said some hotsy totsy fabricators out of the exclusive areas in South Florida will be willing to shell out $150 to $200/skin to make purses, belts and billfolds.

May I digress please? Thank you!

I think I told you a young fellow fishing in my lake saw Alvin the other day. He is the 4-5 footer in the lake, you know. But I bet the majority of you don’t know there are only two species of alligators in the whole world. One lives in the Southeast U.S. and the other in a small area of Eastern China. And in the U.S. the only place that crocodiles live are in the Southern tip of Florida and the Florida Keys in brackish and/or salt water. There are other species of gators in the Americas but they are not established here. One, the Caiman’s skin, is commonly made into cowboy boots but its leather is considered by most to be inferior to the gator and croc. The boots are cheaper to buy, too. Hey Roy Roseville, if you are inclined to buy reptile cowboy boots, you should probably start looking in the Caiman section. No offense meant!

May I regress please? Thank you!

Well, I wrote previously that the good democrat Senator couldn’t predict the weather effects on the python hunt. As you recall he stated the numbers killed were low because it was so warm they stayed hidden and didn’t need to get sun warmed. Well, lo and behold as most of you know, it is ‘pritty’ cold all over the country right now, including Florida and even South Florida. As a result the numbers of pythons turned in went down with the temperature. A total of 21 were caught while warn and only 9 were caught while it has been cold. I forgot when the Senator thought the last iceberg would melt in the Arctic Ocean.

‘Whoa Nellie’, the Tuesday numbers update is crossing the wire as I write. Seven more were turned in to the authorities from the weekend search. The temperature has risen a little but the number caught is about the same. The good Senator is still on the hook! To me the  37 killed is low and disappointing. I hope the activity picks up the last two weeks of the challenge.

I haven’t heard anything out of Buford or Burlene, or how the ex-con, Justin, and his trained Harris hawk are doing. I assume no news is not good news in their quest to take home the dough. I did hear that pop top cans of Bud are sometimes hard to find down South and the empty bottles roll around in the back of the F-150’s too much.

May I digress please? Thank you! 

 Ya’ll remember Pyeggy Python, don’t you? She was the 17’ 7” beauty harboring 87 eggs that was caught last summer and reported by, well, me. She is laid out on the table above and being studied by what appears to be students, probably starving grad students, at the University of Florida. The way it works is like this: the professor tells students what he/she wants studied and recorded and then he/she writes a scientific paper and takes all the credit for conducting the study. Hmmm!

May I regress please? Thank you!

My friend Ted and I had breakfast planned at ‘The Broken Egg’ in Lakewood Ranch today. But he backed out at the last minute by claiming he forgot he was supposed to go to school with his third grader grandson today. I went anyway and had breakfast with an old friend from grad school. Several weeks ago, while Ted was scratching through the left over pieces of biscuits and gravy on his plate with his fork, he mentioned that he had conducted tests in the past with a Dr. Dave Schuster at the local University of Florida Agricultural Experiment Station. That name rang a bell in the ol’ noggin. I asked him where Dave went to grad school and he didn’t know. He did say, “It wasn’t Clemson. I would not forget that”. Ted went to Clemson you know. I told him that I thought I knew him from the old days. When I got home I looked up his bio and, lo and behold, we were students at Kansas State at the same time and before I completed my studies and degree at Oklahoma State, he showed up there.

Well, to make another long story short, after a few non starts he was able to join us, minus Ted of course, for breakfast today. He was older than I remembere, but I would have recognized him anywhere. I suppose he viewed me about the same way. We swapped stories and recalled old friends and he agreed to come back again next time.

The Breakfast Bunny didn’t wait on us today but she did stop by to say hi and ask where Ted was. She also accused us of going to some other joint since according to her we hadn’t been in for more than a month. She is wrong, however. If my calendar could talk, it would say it has only been three weeks.

Hasta luego y con mucho gusto, mi amigos!!!!

Burmese Python Hunt After One Week

The latest number I have seen states 1141 hunters from 32 states and Canada registered and paid the $25.00 fee to be able to capture and kill pythons in the Florida Everglades. So far only 21 snakes have been logged in by the authorities. The hunters include a convicted felon who is not allowed to carry a gun. He trained a Harris hawk to find pythons and alert him. There has been no word on his success at this time. A father-daughter team, Buford and Burlene Pygnoramus, are registered professional snake hunters. Hey Roy Roseville, the correct pronunciation is pig-nor-amos. The pros get to attach a sticker to their truck door that reads “FWC Python Agent” or something like that and they can transport live pythons, for some reason.

 Prior to the Rangers firing his Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum pistol over the hunter’s heads and felling the vulture, Buford and Burlene were sitting on the tailgate of their F-150 in the parking lot, just waiting for the start. Dad opened the cooler, grabbed a couple of beverages and popped the top on a 24 oz. can of Bud and Burlene unscrewed the cap on a 16 oz. bottle of Coke. She proceeded to open a pack of Planters® Salted Peanuts and after taking a big swig, formed a funnel over the opening with her left hand and poured the peanuts into the bottle. Yum, yum!! I used to do that as a kid in Marana, AZ. But that’s another story.

 There are also many TV crews from around the State, States and World trying to film the action. Several reality TV crews have employed hunters to follow around. One crew chief, wearing skinny blue jeans and a sombrero, said that all the hunters he had filmed had necks the color red. I heard the reality TV crews are not above making stuff up if the real deal is not on tap.

 May I digress please? Thank you!

Do you remember back in the 50’s and 60’s, some will some won’t, when professional ‘rasslin’ was big on black and white TV? Nearly all towns of any size had some kind of arena or gym and the pros would all show up riding in the same cars to perform. When the bouts started they would act like they put sharp stuff inside the masks that some of them wore or get brass knuckles from somewhere while the referee’s attention was diverted. Before the fight was over there would be blood everywhere. To make a long story short, the blood was faked but my Grand Dad on my Dad’s side thought it was real and would sit right up next to the TV and holler and cuss the ref and the bad guy.

One of the most commonly used submission holds employed was the sleeper, where one would get a head hold and choke off the others air and make him pass out or maybe it was the Boston crab, where the loser was on his stomach and the winner sat on him backwards, grabbed his ankles and pulled the legs in the wrong direction. Boy, it doesn’t take long before the hurt one starts slapping the canvas giving up! Talk about fake, they have cleaned it up considerably and I don’t think they use the blood anymore. Do they?

 May I regress? Thank you!

 Well, needless to say, you can still buy fake blood somewhere and a reliable source saw a TV crew film a staged python bite on a hunter’s hand. He went into the bushes, squirted the fake blood on his hand and then came out screaming and yelling, “I’m python bit”! The hunter left the blood on his hand, drove back into town and sold the right to film his snake bit hand to other filmers. In reality, the python bite is not poisonous, but is painful since they have several backward pointing teeth.

 May I digress please? Thank you!

 We have a democrat U.S. Senator down here in Florida that flies in from D.C. every time a photo op pops up or he can get on TV. He doesn’t know how to balance a budget or vote ‘No’ on stupid legislation but he knows the reason only 21 pythons have been caught and killed so far is caused by global warming. It is so hot this winter the pythons stay hid and don’t sunbathe. Ha! I bet a hundred dollars he can tell you the precise month, day, year and time the last iceberg in the Arctic Ocean will melt.

 May I regress please? Thank you!

 One thing that python and alligator hunters have in common is the use of the term ‘jump on it’. They say that in reference to taking control of the animal. The python hunter will pounce from the side or back and grab it right behind the head. The alligator nabber will jump on the back and grab the snout and hold the mouth closed while his buddy tapes it shut with refrigeration tape. I was brought up calling it duct tape. I don’t think refrigeration was invented until I was about 17.  You can pretty much have your way with a python if you get it by the tail. You can pull it around and position it so you can get it behind the head. If you get the head and tail at the same time, you’ve got him.

 One hunter, submitting to an interview, shared a story about jumpin’ on a python and missing its head. He said, “if you miss, the snake’ll face ya and raise its head nut high. That’ll cause you to back off in a hurry”. Another fellow told about jumpin’ on an alligator and missin’ a few years back and it was the worst mistake he’s made in his life.

Well that’s all there is for now folks. I’m hoping the action picks up since it has cooled of considerably here and the global warming threat has subsided.

Stay tuned!!!