News Article: Burmese Python kills 2 year old

[ShortStack]

I was taking my Christmas tree down today, and was using the newspaper to wrap my ornamets. When I grabbed one of the pages, an article caught my eye. In 2009 a Burmese python(which was kept illegally) that was about half the normal weight, killed a 2 year old girl near Orlando. The snake was kept in a 150-gallon aquarium, with a QUILT for the "lid". It had not eaten in over a month, and had escaped earlier in the night and the boyfriend of the child's mother found her in the hallway. He stuffed the snake in a mesh bag..with a hole in it!..and put her in the unsecured aquarium. When he woke up the next morning, the snake was wrapped around the child's head. Neither the mother nor her boyfriend were working and had no money to feed that snake, or their other one. The child's grandmother offered to pay for food for the snake, keep them at her house, or buy secured enclosures, and all of her offers were refused. The last meal the snake had was a roadkill squirrel.

Thankfully, this was the first documented instance of a non-venomous constrictor killing a child in the state, ever. However, it's still beyond sad that the ignorance and negligence for both the child and the animal has resulted in this poor baby's death. The snake was reported to be gentle, and the parents were shocked that she would attack the child. That just further proves their ignorance, if you ask me. Any animal that is starved, will search for food. And an animal doesn't have the awareness to say, hey that's a child and I shouldn't eat it. The snake is not to blame, but the parents, and I hope they are tried to the full extent. They are facing up to 15 years each. It's just another case where an adult's stupidity results in tragedy. And it's people like these that will cause all snakes to become illegal to own. Hopefully us responsible pet owners can rally together and prove that not every situation is like this.

When I owned my pitbull I saw stories like this threaten my right to own a dog, and now that I am getting into snakes, I hate to see it happening again.

[mainbutter]

At least that is the excuse told to the police.

I recall reading that apparently the father also later arrested on charges of being a meth cooker/dealer.

In addition I never heard about an autopsy being performed, though at the time this happened I was paying close attention and looked around as best as I could.

At best this was a case of neglect. At worst this was a case of murder blamed on a neglected family pet.

[ShortStack]

I'm in Jacksonville, which is about 4 hours north of Orlando, so I'm surprised I didn't hear about this when it happened. I'm also surprised they didn't kill the snake. Often times when an animal is involved in an attack, that happens, which just adds to the tragedy. Apparently the boyfriend hit the snake with a cleaver, but he recovered from the injury.

[llovelace]

I'm suprised you didn't hear of it, it was all over the news. I don't want to sound like a horrible person, but if the grandmother knew what the conditions were and did nothing other than offering assistance, if either of my grandchildren were in that situation, my daughter would have to come visit her kids at my home.

[ShortStack]

That doesn't make you sound horrible, it makes you sound concerned. I couldn't agree more! If the environment was that risky, then the grandmother should have taken steps to have the children removed. I don't think removing the snakes would have been enough. God only knows what other kind of conditions the children may have been in!