Opinion: Florida’s Great Snake Hunt Is a Cheap Stunt

Agreed.
No one wants to find a python in their kitchen one morning while stumbling around trying to get the coffee made.
But mass hunts like this, which are actually blood lust fueled sprees to satisfy the basest traits within humanity, are not the answer.

Opinion: Florida’s Great Snake Hunt Is a Cheap Stunt: I registered as a python hunter but I did not really intend to hunt pythons. I wanted to see my first wildlife rumble, a fight between snake haters and animal rights activists, something along the lines of those protesters who dress up as wolves or polar bears, or who splash fake blood onto Canadian politicians to protest clubbing seal babies.

Instead I discovered something resembling a scene in the film Jaws—not the one where the town hires a seasoned shark expert to go out and kill the great white, but the ridiculous scene where every idiot with a pitchfork and an inner tube is paddling out to get a piece of shark meat.

I met contestants who had never seen a Burmese python before, who had never handled a snake. I overheard one man telling some greenhorns from Maine that his technique is to swing a snake by the tail and slam its head into a tree. "It stuns 'em," he said.

I was surprised by the following:

The Nature Conservancy showed up, but they're a partner in the Python Challenge, a contrast to their own python control program, and provided the training materials.

Vintage snake images

I found these vintage images of snake charmers, snake farms, etc. while writing the post below about the live eating of animals for your entertainment pleasure.

Eating the dog; "She'd Have Done It, Too"

Some people are fucking idiots:Three lost in woods considered eating dog | The mushroom pickers who were found after six nights in the forest stayed in what they described as a “bear’s nest”

GOLD BEACH — Three mushroom pickers lost six nights in the rugged forest of Southwest Oregon with no food considered eating their dog, and they used their dead cell phone and a sheath knife to flash a signal at the helicopter pilot who found them.

Dan Conne said Sunday from his hospital bed in Gold Beach that he and his wife and son spent the nights huddled in a hollow log with nothing to eat, and considered sacrificing their pit bull, Jesse, for food.

“She’s that good a dog, she’d have done it, too,” Conne said.

Animal Sacrifice: Two Sad, Strange Events of Animal Slaughter | MonsterTracker.com since the year 2000 has been investgating cryptozoology, cryptids, and other mysterious creatures.

My new article for Monster Tracker:
Animal Sacrifice: Two Sad, Strange Events of Animal Slaughter | MonsterTracker.com since the year 2000 has been investgating cryptozoology, cryptids, and other mysterious creatures.

Two weird and very sad events, hard to read about, juxtaposed in animal news. This one in Ohio, a state that has its share of spooky, Fortean events in general: Ohio wild-animal killings renew call for ban on exotic pets - latimes.com.
The owner of Muskingum County Animal Farm in Zanesville, Ohio, apparently flung open the reserve's cages, slashed open its pens and then killed himself. Dozens of wild and dangerous animals -- including grizzly bears, lions, tigers and a baboon -- were then free to roam the area. Most of them were gunned down by public safety officers.

Animal Symbolism in Dreams: Baby Elephant

I visit What's Your Sign.com now and then and thought I'd share a link about animal symbolism in dreams: Animals In Dreams - What Animals Symbolize in Dreams.

I was particularly interested in the above because it seems I've been having animal dreams lately. Like yesterday's silly and enigmatic Penguin Moons dream.

Last night, a very disturbing dream about a baby elephant that I was keeping as a "pet" (something I would never do, and I am adamantly against keeping exotic animals as pets, or even in most zoo like situations/captivity.) Jim reminds me that the elephant hasn't been fed for a long time, and it's really hungry. This surprises me because I thought he was fine. He's in the backyard. So I go out to check, and feel bad I hadn't realized he would need to eat elephant food, and he follows along my side but then starts to nip at me like a dog would, and the elephant is pissed. Again I'm surprised, for the baby elephant is so cute! But he's behaving very aggressively. He's really hurt me by bumping into me and nipping at me.  Somehow I try to get him over a wall or something -- where food is-- but it ends up tragically and he falls from pretty high and crashes to the ground. He's bleeding, hurt, really injured. I feel terrible, just horrible, I'm crying. I try to feed him vegetables, things he might like. He feels better but it's temporary, he's dying. And in pain. I also worry about the neighbor's, because he landed in their house, and there's blood and a mess everywhere and how do I explain that? Jim hands me a gun and tells me I have to kill the elephant, put him out of his misery, it's the only right thing to do. I know it is but I just cannot bring myself to it. I am so miserable, so sad, and feel so bad that I've created this by thinking I could take care of a baby elephant in my backyard in the city and nothing would happen.

 What's Your Sign has a lot about elephants, animal meanings and symbolism connected with chakras, totems. I found interesting insights regarding elephants but not baby elephants specifically and obviously the fact the elephant in my dream was a baby is significant. I'm thinking this has something to do with health and life changes on one level but I need to explore this more.

But if you are curious about dream imagery and meaning in the context of animals, have fun exploring the site, which offers a lot of information on many symbols from different cultures and systems.

Flesh Eating Equines?

Came across this book listed on Amazon.com: Deadly Equines: The Shocking True Story of Meat-Eating and Murderous Horses .

Haven't read the book, don't anything about the premise. Here's some from the blurb:

There is widespread belief in a warm and comforting story which states the horse is a gentle herbivore. What if a Rosetta Stone had been found to unlock the dark secrets of the horse's past? An international multi-million dollar industry serviced by horse whisperers, glossy magazines and popular culture preaches that horses are meek prey animals who fear predators. What if evidence demonstrated horses have slain lions, tigers, pumas, wolves, hyenas and humans? Contemporary writers have successfully airbrushed murderous and meat-eating horses out of literature. What if Shakespeare, Sherlock Holmes and Steve McQueen provided artistic evidence to refute that claim? Thanks to global equestrian amnesia, the crucial role played by horses in recent history has been lost to mankind. What if testimony revealed meat-eating horses had been used to explore the Poles and photographs had been discovered of Tibet's blood-eating horses? Deadly Equines is a revolutionary departure from equestrian romance. It is a fact-filled analysis which reveals how humanity has known about meat-eating horses for at least four thousand years, during which time horses have consumed nearly two dozen different types of protein, including human flesh, and that these episodes have occurred on every continent, including Antarctica.

I don't know much about horses -- I'm not a horse person and while I think they're beautiful animals and I wish them no harm in any way, I admit I'm afraid of them. The book seems almost like a put-on. Yet a brief bit of searching does reveal some interesting things about meat eating horses. Like here. But mostly, searching revealed more links to places that insist horses do not eat meat, or sites discussing the ethical and health pros and cons of humans eating horse meat.

More exotic snakes seized in Longview

One city in Washington state is coming down on people who think snakes are pets. Boa constrictors, alligators, etc. considered exotic animals and you need a license to keep one. Many of the "pet"owners in the article are males in their twenties, thirties, who, according to the article, would normally have had pit bulls in the past. In one instance the snakes were removed from the home because there was a five year old child in the home.

How happy can an animal be that is kept in a large glass box? And it wants living food for, not a frozen rabbit. Yet feeding it live animals is also abhorrently gratuitous. Snake, young males, hmmm. Calling Dr. Freud.

More exotic snakes seized in Longview

(Warning; dead rat pic) Giant rat killed by pitchfork in Marcy Houses is believed to be Gambian pouched rat

I don't want rats, especially giant ones, running around my place, who does? But there's an air of old fashioned exploitation and titillation in this report on a giant rat killed -- by pitchfork, no less! -- in New York: Giant rat killed by pitchfork in Marcy Houses is believed to be Gambian pouched rat.The article gladly shows the color photo of killed, giant rate hanging from the prongs of the pitchfork. The article describes the rat's tail: "... [which is] hideously dangling." The rat is, specifically, a Gambian pouched rat, illegal in the U.S. since 2003, because the rats carried monkeypox which affected humans.

The rats are, as anyone who's had rats as pets knows, very intelligent, and sweet. These rats can be "... trained to sniff out landmines or even tuberculosis." That's as pets. In the urban wild they're not . Another sad contrast and fact of animals and humans living in the same space.

Happy Happy Bunnies, They Be

Poor rabbits, cops took their pot away...this story from Germany of an eldery woman, her bunnies, and their pot loving ways: Drugs plot raid reveals old woman feeding rabbits with cannabis - The Local

Top 20 Pet Food Forums and Message Boards

Nothing Fortean or paranormal about this link: Veterinarian Technician Top 20 Pet Food Forums and Message Boards but I'm passing it along because the information at this site is helpful, listing resources on quality pet foods, pet food recall updates, and pet message boards and forums.