Reason #4,576 for not having pet python
A 12-foot pet Burmese python broke out of an aquarium and strangled a 2-year-old girl in her bedroom Wednesday in a central Florida home, authorities said.
According to The Associated Press, Lt. Steve Binegar, of the Sumter County Sheriff's Office, said the toddler was strangled by the snake in the town of Oxford, about 50 miles northwest of Orlando.
Pythons can kill by wrapping themselves around a human. Paramedics said the girl was dead when they arrived at about 10 a.m.
Sheriff's officials told the Orlando Sentinel that the snake broke out of a glass aquarium overnight, went to the girl's bedroom and attacked her. The owner found the snake wrapped around the girl and stabbed it while others called 911.
The Humane Society of the United States said including Wednesday's death, at least 12 people have been killed in the U.S. by pet pythons since 1980, including five children.
Jorge Pino, a spokesman with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, said that pythons are not native to Florida and can easily grow to 10 or 12 feet long.
Law enforcement officials remove a pet Burmese python, measuring more than 8 feet long, from the home where it killed 2-year-old Shaunnia Hare in Oxford, Fla. on Wednesday. Charles Jason Darnell, the snake's owner and the boyfriend of Shaunnia's mother, discovered the snake missing from its terrarium and went to the girl's room, where he found it on the girl and bite marks on her head. Darnell, 32, stabbed the snake until he was able to pry the child away. AP Photo/Orlando Sentinel, Tom Benitez
Comments
I really think that the exotic pet trade is a bad idea all around. The animals always wind up getting hurt somehow, as well as people. There is no clear reason that I can think of for keeping an 8 foot snake in your home, particularly when you have small children. Ok, yes, some people find snakes fascinating, but let them stay in the wild where they belong (and I don't mean the "wild" in your community, because they usually do not belong there either).
Posted by: Audrey | July 3, 2009 2:57 PM
This is yet another case of an idiot giving a black eye to responsible reptile keepers. There are multiple things wrong with this entire situation, not just the burm; the DCS investigation earlier this year for drug abuse and dealing and child neglect and abuse, the fact that the owner did not have the proper permit, the snake was kept in an open aquarium and then had a quilt tied over the top in the hopes it would keep the animal in.... The list goes on and on and on.
Kept by responsible hobbyists there is great joy to be found in keeping a burm, or any large reptile. This guy was anything but responsible. The snake should have been in a solid, locking enclosure and should have been fed more recently ~ just looking at the pics of the snake it is glaringly obvious that it was malnourished. Burms are supposed to be solid, filled-out animals, they are chunky not scrawny.
This is a tragedy all the way around. For the child, those that loved the child, and reptile hobbyists.
Posted by: Becky | July 5, 2009 2:08 PM