State wildlife officers shot and killed a 9-foot-long green anaconda Monday near the St. Johns River at the Brevard – Orange county line.
A concerned citizen and an airboater had called the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission around 5 p.m. Monday. FWC responded and found a large snake on the embankment of the Midway Airboat Rides off of State 50 in north Brevard, said Lenny Salberg, an FWC spokesman.
For the record, this isn't exactly my neighborhood; it's about 40 miles from here. But I can just imagine an anaconda of that size crossing the boat ramp just about anyplace I go. Imagine backing down the trailer and suddenly hitting a speed bump.
In an unrelated but somehow appropriate event, I was going to print out my forms for the Remington Black Friday rebates and the printer kept jamming on the paper feed. This is ordinarily pretty reliable, so we opened it up and found a fried and dehydrated little lizard caught in the rollers. The printer is close to the back doors that open onto our porch/courtyard.
I have an iguana that comes sunbathe to my edge of the lake and could probably beat the crap out of most neighborhood dogs.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, we don't find anacondas around where I live these days.
ReplyDeleteAround these parts, they named a Major League Baseball team for the reptiles we can expect to see. Last I checked, anacondas aren't known for being venomous....
;-)
Did I click on Dave Berry's blog by mistake? You forgot to say "I am not making this up".
ReplyDeleteTerry
Fla.
ReplyDeleteTerry, I read Dave's blog so often that I unconsciously sound like him. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
You'll be happy to know the anaconda was released after showing a valid Florida driver's license.
AuricTech - I've been as close as I'd like to get to some of your diamondbacks, and I don't mean the baseball playing guys. You're right, of course, anacondas are not venomous. You the old saying about automatic fire, that "quantity has a quality all of its own"? When the snake is 30 feet long and 500 pounds, that sort of substitutes for some venom.
I am not exactly a fan of multi-tools. Both my leatherman, and the gerber multi-tool do all things more or less so-so.
ReplyDeleteBut your printer/fryer/food dehydrator idea is kind of interesting. And the bacon feed tray might be quite the popular idea to have handy when I reading blogs in the early AM hours. Pretty sure that running an egg through the laser printer might be a bit beyond our tech abilities.
Just for the record; That snake (the green Anaconda) will grow to somewhere above twenty five feet in length and is known to eat children and small adults. That one is a hatchling. A baby snake, and not the first one killed in south Fla.---Ray
ReplyDeleteThe snake was a legitimate refugee and had been vetted by homeland security. The AG has asked that you no longer make threats against snakes in the grass and if you do she will prosecute you.
ReplyDeleteSure is a shame they killed it. That's a nice snack size for the gators in that area, for when the airboat tour drivers forget to "lose" a few snowbirds every once in a while. And even full-grown, those things aren't a concern for the Fleckingers' cattle near Midway Fish Camp.
ReplyDeleteAnon 1231 - and speaking as a snake in the grass herself ...
ReplyDelete