Ban owning big snakes

You see the new study showing that pythons and anacondas have devoured much of the wildlife in the Florida Everglades? Excerpt:

Officials can’t stop invasive pythons and anacondas from marauding in the Everglades, Reed said; they can only hope to contain them. “We’re trying to prevent spread to the Florida Keys and elsewhere north.”

The snakes were released by pet owners into the Everglades, where they started to breed. A female python can lay 100 eggs, though 54 is considered the norm. The study was described as the first to show pythons are causing the decline of native mammals in the Everglades.

When researchers struck out to count animals along a main road that runs to the southernmost tip of the park, more than 99 percent of raccoons were gone, along with nearly the same percentage of opossums and about 88 percent of bobcats. Marsh and cottontail rabbits, as well as foxes, could not be found.

Well, screw the raccoons, I hate them anyway. Still, this is crazy. Why does the government let anybody own a python, a boa constrictor, an anaconda, or any other giant snake not native to this country? It makes no sense. You do not need to be owning a big snake! Who the hell thought it was a good idea to let people own giant non-native snake species as pets? Did it never occur to anyone in authority that hey, this might be a problem if they got into the wild and started reproducing?!

I live in a part of the world that is full of snakes.  We don’t need any more because jackass pet owners set snakes that aren’t native to this place free.

Except if they eat armadillos too. Then, never mind.