[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 16821-16822]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            BURMESE PYTHONS

  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, tragedy has struck. It is not 
like we haven't been warned. With the proliferation of the Burmese 
python being brought into the United States, these pythons people buy 
as pets, and then they get so big that the people don't want them 
around the house anymore and they release them. Of course, in south 
Florida they are releasing them into a natural habitat which is the 
Florida Everglades, so much so that the superintendent of the 
Everglades National Park has now estimated that they have proliferated 
to the tune of 150,000 to 180,000 of these Burmese pythons.
  When Secretary Salazar came down a month ago for us to take him into 
the Everglades so he could see that extraordinary feature of Mother 
Nature, the river of grass, we took him in an airboat out across this 
river of grass. We also wanted to show him what is lurking beneath that 
grass now. We took him to two captured Burmese pythons. One was about 
an 8 footer and another one was a 16 footer. A 16-foot Burmese python 
in his midsection is that much in diameter. It took three grown men to 
hold that python. The oldest registered Burmese python in captivity has 
grown to 27 feet. Indeed, an 18 footer was captured and killed in the 
Everglades, and it was a female. They found inside of her 56 eggs that

[[Page 16822]]

were ready to hatch. That is why we have a proliferation.
  We have spent a lot of money, along with the State of Florida, to 
restore the Everglades, one of the great natural wonders of the world. 
Mankind, over the course of three quarters of a century, has diked and 
drained the Everglades, and we are trying to restore them now. But here 
we have an invasive species that has been introduced that is upsetting 
the entire ecological balance. Already we have found, for example, 
somehow a Burmese python swam across the ocean to Key Largo in the 
upper Florida Keys. They found inside this Burmese python the 
endangered Key Largo wood rat. They have found a full size bobcat. They 
have found a full size deer. Indeed, the Burmese python is at the top 
of the food chain. These pythons, in fact, get into fights with 
alligators, and they found inside one of the Burmese pythons a 6-foot 
alligator.
  I want to show what I am talking about. I want colleagues to see this 
critter. This is only a 6 footer. This Burmese python is 2 feet shorter 
than the Burmese python 4 days ago that, after it had escaped from its 
glass container at midnight, the man of the house found missing. He 
went and got the Burmese python, put it back in the container and, 
unfortunately, did not secure the top of the container, put, if we can 
believe it, a quilt over the top and secured down the edges of the 
quilt. Guess what an 8-foot Burmese python can do coming out of a glass 
container? Tragedy struck, because that python slithered throughout the 
house and up into a baby crib where there was a 2-year-old little girl 
named Shaiunna Hare. That Burmese python attached its fangs to the 
forehead of that child and then did what they do, wrapped its body 
around the body of the little child and proceeded with all of that 
muscle to strangle the child to death. This is what we have been saying 
was going to happen. This happened with a domestic pet in a home. This 
is what is capable of happening with 180,000 of these pythons in the 
Florida National Everglades Park.
  Sooner or later, a Burmese python will get the endangered Florida 
panther. Sooner or later, for an unsuspecting tourist in the Everglades 
National Park, there will be an encounter with a human. Tragically, it 
took this event of the strangulation by one of these snakes of a child 
within her own home in the child's crib to bring this to our attention.
  This Wednesday there will be a hearing in the committee chaired by 
Senator Boxer. I will be testifying. I will bring further evidence than 
these photographs. Here are wildlife officers encountering a snake with 
an attachment that grabs the snake from right behind the head. In this 
case, it is probably a 6\1/2\ footer--relatively small. But we can see 
the size. This is solid muscle. That is why these constricter snakes 
have the capability of asphyxiating their prey before they then consume 
their prey. We have heard the old adage, a pig in a python. That is 
exactly what it is. Once they asphyxiate their prey, then their jaws 
are capable of totally opening and they ingest the entire victim into 
their body. There is the old phrase: a pig in a python with the hump. 
That is exactly what it is.
  That is the alligator that was found, the 6-foot alligator, within 
the stomach of the snake. That is the same thing.
  There is something we can do about this. No. 1, the U.S. Fish and 
Wildlife Service has the capability under law now to declare this an 
injurious species. Since they have been studying this for the last 2\1/
2\ years and have still not acted, although I believe that Secretary of 
the Interior Salazar is getting them off dead center and is going to 
get them to start moving, there is something else we can do. We can 
change the law. We can stop the importation by changing this from being 
a species that is allowed to be imported into one that is injurious. 
That change of definition in the law would stop the importation of 
these snakes into this country and would stop the exporting of these 
snakes from one State across State lines to another.
  The State of Florida has a registration fee. They now require the 
implantation of a chip so that if the snake gets loose, we will have a 
chance of chasing it down. Nevertheless, when we have 150,000 to 
180,000 of these snakes in the Everglades National Park alone, we can 
see that the ecological balance of Mother Nature is definitely being 
upset. We must change it. We must do it quickly.
  Therefore, in front of the Boxer committee will be the legislation I 
have offered with a number of other Senators, trying to put a halt to 
the things that led to this tragedy of this little girl being strangled 
to death by a Burmese python.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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