Is hunting a sport?

Hunting started off as a food source back when the Cavemen hunted dinosaurs, I’m guessing. It’s hard to consider hunting as a sport when a fat beer guzzler blows the head off Bambi taking a drink of water out of the stream, while wearing an orange vest. That same fat beer guzzling S.O.B. can roll a ball down the lanes at bowling alley and that is a sport. Fishing derbies can give fishermen a challenge based on the size of the catch or quantity. What about a snake wrangler? Guys that hunt Pythons in the everglades. Some catch these pythons that can average 6-9 ft long with their bare hands. I would have to classify the annual Everglades Python Hunt as a sport as they award prize money and it does the swampy land of Florida good to prevent it being decimated by this invasive species.

Burmese Pythons were originally brought to the United States as pets during the 1970’s. When little Johnny’s pet got bigger than the dog, parents probably thought they should release the snake into the wild. Seem like a great idea at the time to release these foreign snakes into the Everglades. Suddenly these snakes multiply in their new habitat, causing problems to the Everglades Ecosystem. Burmese Pythons have no predators. These snakes feed on reptiles, birds, even mammals such as raccoons and white tail deer. As part of the state of Florida eradication program, they invite professional and even amateur hunters to come to the Everglades and remove Pythons for cash prizes. Since the year 2000 the State of Florida has estimated they have eliminated 17,000 Pythons. Perhaps St. Patrick would of been the way to go as the legendary saint removed all the snakes from the old sod of Ireland centuries ago.

Imagine some of these snake wranglers look like Crocodile Dundee. The Everglades Python Hunt has 850 people across the country including Canada that compete for prize money. The grand prize is $10,000 for whatever snake wrangler can remove the most pythons in ten days. Other prizes include size of the beast , and remember some of these Pythons can be Anaconda sizes. That’s a lot of Everglades for these snakes to be munching on to get that big.

Trying to track these Burmese Pythons in the dark swamps where some of these snake wranglers have their hunt down to a science. Some of these wranglers snatch the Python behind the head to avoid getting bitten. Then put it in cloth bag from which I’m sure it fights to get out as you tie the knot. Some wranglers will wait later on to kill the snake with a BB gun. Some might whack the snake right in the bag on the head with some kind of rock, bat, mallet, whatever soothes the hunters fatality of the slithery species. Every one has a talent of some kind and some use this gift to earn money. Snake wranglers compete against each other with the eye of the tiger and like in any sport try to find the edge to do their hunt the best way. They work on their skills and fine tune them to get better as I can see the Everglades Python hunt being a intense competition. All these Pythons don’t go to waste. You think they could make some kind of wallet or shoes out of the snake skin. Some of these Pythons appear on the cooking menus in Florida and probably in other states as well. Snake tacos anyone?