Get These Mother-Effing Snakes Out of This Mother-Effing Habitat

Those who know me are aware that few things scare me as much as snakes. I hate those squirmy little death-vermin, and I refuse to acknowledge (rational) arguments of their merits…or the complete inability of some species to kill me. The point is, they freak me out.

So imagine my inadvertent bowel movement surprise when I stumbled upon this story in my Google Reader. Let me save you the suspense of clicking through by highlighting the basics (emphasis mine):

The US Geological Survey has published maps predicting that burmese pythons currently breeding in the wild in the USA could spread across all of the lower USA.

[...] The snakes, which can grow to 20 feet and 250 pounds, [...] are another example of the dangers of trade in exotic species. Originally sold as pets, many owners release the snakes into the wild when they tire of caring [for] them. Amazingly, this is occurring often enough that the snakes have established breeding colonies, the first step towards spreading out into their new environment.

Oh my God.

Selfishly, this story terrifies me because (as mentioned) I hate snakes AND I live in the area that the pythons could potentially invade and inhabit. More broadly (and importantly), this story speaks to a fascinating and frightening implication of human desires mixed with wild animals. There are plenty of illustrative examples of the bad, bad things that happen when people forget that wild animals are…well, ultimately wild animals. Like the guy from the documentary Grizzly Man, who thought he had earned the trust of the bears he admired and studied before meeting a gruesome end when those wild carnivores turned on him. Or Steve Sipek, the B-movie Tarzan star who kept a pet Tiger until it escaped and police killed it to protect others.

But history also demonstrates the resulting catastrophe of introducing an animal into an unnatural habitat. Exhibit A: The Cane Toad. If the snakes don’t produce nightmares, maybe this video will:

The bottom line? This python situation (early to judge and unlikely though their advance may be) represents the worst of two attitudes: “I deserve an exotic pet…like an extremely dangerous snake that can be my friend” AND “I’m tired of caring for my exotic and dangerous snake, so I’ll set it free into a habitat where it doesn’t belong.”

Plus, did I mention that snakes are scary?

Hat tip to TreeHugger for my nightmares the article, and their [superior] Snakes on a Plane pun: “Snakes on a Plain.”

Despite my own preference of keeping Tropophilia snake-image free, image used under a Creative Commons license courtesy of Flickr user dominiqs81.