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dirtydog

A pet python broke out of its holding tank and strangled a two-year-old girl in the bedroom of her home in Florida, local authorities said.

The 8ft (2.5m) albino Burmese python had also bitten Shaiunna Hare on her forehead several times.

Charles Darnell, the snake's owner and boyfriend of Shaiunna's mother, stabbed the python and prised the child away, but she died before paramedics arrived.

Authorities removed the snake from the home after obtaining a search warrant.

Officials said Mr Darnell did not have a permit for the snake. He could face child endangerment or other charges.

Everglades breeding

According to police, Mr Darnell said he had put the snake in a bag in an aquarium container on Tuesday night, but awoke the next morning to find it missing.

Bobby Caruthers, from the sheriff's office in Sumter County, central Florida, said Mr Darnell "ran immediately to the infant's room" and discovered "the snake on the child".

"He also said he observed bite marks on the forehead of the child," Mr Caruthers said.

Wildlife officials say they are growing increasingly concerned by the proliferation of pythons in the Florida wilderness.

It is believed that some have been released by pet owners who can no longer care for them.

The snakes are breeding in the Everglades, where they have no natural predators.

Burmese pythons can reach a length of 16ft (5m) and live for 30 years.

The US Humane Society told Associated Press news agency that at least 12 people have been killed in the US by pet pythons since 1980, including five children.

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kingwilly

RIP

tjyflhol

I guess some people just think pets and toddlers mix and don't see the problem. They don't seem to think that bit further that the pet they are keeping is an 8 ft long predator which is built to solely eat toddler sized mammals.

Snakes are notorious for escaping their enclosures, far too risky to keep one of this size with small children in the house.

Loy Toy

What a terrible tradgedy.

Must have been a terrible way to die and may she rest in peace!

jim1176

very reckless, sad outcome

TexasRanger

How the fark can anyone thinking that keeping pythons and babies in the same house is a good idea? Some people are just so retarded. Sorry for the kid.

somtamslap

^ some people don't enter the world with the necessary brain furniture unfortunately.

So sorry for the child and her family...it's a worst nightmare at best.

Butterfly

looks like typical American trash,

keeping guns, snake and kids at proximity,

fucking idiot, I hope he gets to go in jail and get ass raped for being so stupid

poor girl

Mr Brown

What a reassuring thread

I've got Burmese Pythons crawling all around the place here; 2 chickens dead, 1 python shot last night - still one on the loose.

Loy Toy

Exactly and the same goes for cats.

Cats have been known to get into cots with very young babies and unintentionally smoother them. They look for the very soft, warm places and unfortunately many babies have been suffocated.

Sometimes pets and very young children do not mix but unfortunately some people never see the danger unti it is too late.

S Landreth

I have read that some people have been letting their exotic animals go into the Florida Everglades when they get to where they can not handle or want them any longer. Not a good idea.

From a story in the Miami Herald today (pictures of the python):

In the past two years, the Miami Metrozoo has worked with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission on Nonnative Pet Amnesty Day -- when owners can turn in their exotic pets, no questions asked. So far it has collected about 250 animals -- including baby iguanas, pythons and an African wildcat known as a serval.

And

On Wednesday came the worst incident in a decade: a 2-year-old girl killed after a Burmese python escaped from its cage, then clenched its teeth into her head.
Poor child.

Link: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/southflorida/story/1123803.html

And a video of an African Wildcat (Serval,………..this is not your Hello Kitty type)


YouTube - Nice Kitty - African Serval Wildcat

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Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.

Humbert

I knew someone would inject nationalism into this tragic thread. One track minds

Mr R Sole

Should've had a Boa constrictor instead, they're far less bitey...hindsight's a bugger...

But seriously an awful trajedy for the child and mther and relatives...

Having Boa's (not to be confused with Burmese Pythons) myself before..roaming around my house!!! but no kids..at that time..I would say they recognised me my wife my dog..and posed no threat to us whatsoever....the rats I kept for food weren't as lucky....
personally I love snakes and well 'all creatures great and small'

A 8ft Python would look at a 2yr old as about the right size for food...then again some kids in America are huge....so maybe the kid could've eaten the snake.

A truely sad event for both family and snake...as now no doubt the snake will be destroyed....because of the incompatencey of the keeper...

Also a point made earlier...Animals and kids don't mix...I was brought from a baby with a dog that never left my side, and protected me all his life (RIP)

Yet there are many tragic stories about family dogs savaging kids...cats sitting on the mouths of kids and them suffocating

now that's a stuffed snake!! Can't tell if this is a fake photo or not...

All animals are dangerous....just look at mosquito's...tiny but deadly...

blackgang

But Notice what he wrote, he also likes it up the ass from what he says, so was a correct place for him to post it.
Gives him a warm fuzzy feeling just thinking about it.

Bexar County Stud

That's absolute rubbish - there's never been a verified case of this happening, yet the myth persists, due to ancient beliefs about cats being symbols of evil, etc.

"Cats have been known..." LOL, yes, known in myth.

It's a good idea to not allow pets to have unsupervised access to infants/small kids.
But the stuff about cats smothering babies is garbage, dude.

tjyflhol

Myth, rumour, and absolute facts get strangely mixed up in LT's world.

Though cats will suck the breath out of an infant's mouth, I saw it in a film once.

Panda

There have been cases of parents suffocating babies by rolling on them in their sleep. I have personal experience involving such a case as had to attend Coroners Court inquest as a witness. Extremely sad indeed.

BobR

Here's one that Charles Darwin probably did not even think of. Hopefully this means the family line stops here.

S Landreth

Florida Sen. Bill Nelson delivered a vivid show-and-tell to lawmakers, unrolling the skin of a Burmese python killed in Everglades National Park, all 17 feet of it. Then he explained in graphic detail how a pet python half that size strangled a toddler in her crib last week in a town northwest of Orlando.

There are more out there


Picture yourself out in the glades fishing and something that size swimming by you.

S Landreth

Florida wants to start tracking and killing pythons

Trappers will be trained to hunt and kill exotic snakes on state lands and, if a Florida senator has his way, Everglades National Park may run its own python hunt.

The python posse is coming to the Everglades.

Florida wildlife managers are poised to unleash a team of trained hunters to track and kill the giant snakes on state lands.

''We've got to start doing something,'' said Rodney Barreto, chairman of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. ``Gov. Crist wants to take action to stop the spread of this snake.''

The program, which Barreto said he expected the governor to sign off on Wednesday, would be the first of what could turn into a two-fanged assault on a serpent that routinely grows longer than a Hummer. Florida Sen. Bill Nelson on Tuesday also called for organizing a controlled hunt in the federal lands of Everglades National Park.

''There's one way to do this: kill the snakes,'' Nelson said in an e-mail.

While the FWC is still considering placing a bounty on the constrictors, the state's initial program will be similar to its handling of wayward alligators.

The dangerous business of capturing a snake that crushes and swallows its prey whole will be left to professionals -- perhaps 20 trappers at first who could be cleared to begin taking out pythons within a week.

''This is not the wild, wild West. These people will be licensed, trained and managed by us,'' said Barreto, who has been pushing for a python eradication program for two years as the snakes began showing up in increasing numbers in the state-owned water conservation areas north of the national park's Tamiami Trail boundary.

Over the past decade, park biologists have charted an alarming explosion in the python population, now estimated at 100,000-plus in the park alone.

Where is your dog?