What kind of people keep exotic pets?

Screwballs–That’s who keeps exotic pets.

Lions, giraffes, piranhas–Can you imagine this stuff is allowed?

Read this story on the website of the Alaska Department of Fish & Game about people who keep exotic pets.

People in Alaska are keeping emus, tigers, monkeys and bears.

I’m not making this up.

Here is a USA Today article about the prospect of pythons, aided by global warming, colonizing the lower third of the United States by the year 2100.

From the article—

As climate change warms the nation, giant Burmese pythons could colonize one-third of the USA, from San Francisco across the Southwest, Texas and the South and up north along the Virginia coast, according to U.S. Geological Survey maps released Wednesday.

The pythons can be 20 feet long and 250 pounds. They are highly adaptable to new environments.

Burmese pythons were introduced to the USA as part of the pet trade. The first specimens in the wild were discovered in the mid-1990s in the Florida Everglades, released by owners who no longer wanted them…

By 2003, there was evidence the snakes had established breeding colonies in the wild…

The Burmese python is not poisonous and not considered a danger to humans. Attacks on humans have involved pet owners who mishandle and misfeed the snakes, Snow says. In Florida, they eat bobcats, deer, alligators, raccoons, cats, rats, rabbits, muskrats, possum, mice, ducks, egrets, herons and song birds. They grab with their mouth to anchor the prey, then coil around the animal and crush it to death before eating it whole.

If you see one, don’t attempt to engage it. Leave the area, note the location and notify the authorities.

I hope these snakes take over the whole damned country. We can live under the rule of snakes in a hot zone of weird creatures and screwball people.

Here is some information about pythons.

Here is infomation about global warming.