I get the feeling this must have been an interesting morning.

It seems that the staff of the National Parks Service are both versatile and courageous. (If that link shows later news, select the news for this date from the drop-down menu.)

A few days ago Mr. Ron DeLong was driving through the Everglades National Park, FL, and stopped his SUV to watch a six-foot Burmese python. The snake promptly installed itself in his engine compartment, despite his attempts to stop it.

Realizing he couldn't handle it on his own, he drove 15 miles to the main entrance station. There a ranger, a biologist, a biologist's assistant and a fireman tried to pull it out. That didn't work, so they tried a taser, which "resulted in the python contracting and excreting bodily fluids all over the responders".

I'd have paid good money to have been around to hear the language at that point! :-)

Finally the four responders actually disassembled parts of the SUV to get at the snake, covered its head in duct tape and extracted it through the engine compartment and out the top. Unfortunately they had to kill the snake (due to its exotic non-native status - it must have been abandoned in the Park by some bozo who couldn't be bothered to do the decent thing and give it to a zoo or pet shop - and possibly due to injuries suffered from being driven around and extracted like that).

Full marks to ranger Willie Lopez, wildlife biologist Skip Snow, biologist’s assistant Alex Wolf and firefighter Henry Delvalle for a difficult and certainly unusual job well done! Sorry about the snake s*** all over your uniforms, guys, but, hey - what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right?

*gigglesnort!*

Peter