Ban on Snake Trade

I had no idea what I was going to write about for this post until I got an e-mail with a link to an article from The U.S. Fish and WildlifeService talking about the new rule that large four constrictor snakes species can no longer be imported or taken across state lines.

As a side note, I thought it was ironic that US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar made the announcement. To those that don’t see the irony, you need to read Harry Potter more. Another ironic side note, this rule was sponsored by senator Bill Nelson, but this Bill Nelson lives in Florida, unlike our Nebraskan Bill Nelson.

As a wildlife biology major, I was happy to see this article. I personally agree with the action of the Senate. We as humans are not only good at destroying the natural order of things, we are good at helping other species do it too. Most people don’t think that their cute little snake can easily grow over 10 feet in length. The same people probably don’t think about what their snake is going to eat when they let it go into the Everglades; they just know that they don’t want it anymore and don’t want to kill it. The problem is, the snakes do eat. And something that big eats a lot at a time. There is a really cool picture of a dead Burmese python with the tail of an six foot long American alligator sticking out of it on the irishtimes.com. That same article also talked about another Burmese python that ate a 74 pound deer. Just to clarify, snakes don’t chew their food, they swallow it whole. To recap, these are BIG snakes. Another thing people don’t think about is that, if there are a bunch of newly released snakes in one area, they have the opportunity to reproduce and make more little (soon to be big) snakes.

On the financial side of things, Congress should be saving the taxpayers some money. The government has spent millions of dollars trying to eradicate these invasive species from the Everglade ecosystem. They have even trained a "snake sniffing" dog to help with the wrangling efforts.

As a whole, I love snakes. I have thought about going into herpetology (the study of amphibians and reptiles), and I don’t like the idea of having to kill them. This rule limits the number of snakes that will have to be killed in other parts of the country and protects the natural habitat of non-Everglade states.