Python hunt! To help thin the population of escaped-and-released pythons that, apparently, threaten to take over the Everglades. (Pets-gone-awry must be the most destructive category of animals on the planet—after people, of course.) It's worth clicking through for the photo alone.
"If you're in there hunting, and you see a python, you can kill it,"' Hardin said.Hunters have used nets and snares and guns to subdue the reptiles, but all legal hunting methods are allowed, including bang sticks, harpoons and spear guns.
Bang sticks?
Wikipedia sez: aka "powerheads" (this whole story's one long double entendre) bang sticks are guns designed for firing underwater, when in direct contact with the target.
Although most commercial powerheads use standard handgun ammunition, such as .357 Magnum or .44 Magnum, the bullet has little or no effect on the killing power of the bang stick. The muzzle blast does the damage, as much high-pressure gas is forced into the flesh of the target. Blank cartridges can produce fatal wounds when fired in or near contact, and they work well in powerheads
And, for a little Thursday morning etymology:
python
1590, the fabled serpent, slain by Apollo, near Delphi, from L. Python, from Gk. Python, probably related to Pytho, the old name of Delphi, perhaps itself related to pythein "to rot." Zoological application to large non-venomous snakes of the tropics is from 1836, originally in Fr.pythoness
late 14c., "woman with the power of soothsaying," from O.Fr. phitonise (13c.), from L.L. pythonissa, used in Vulgate of the Witch of Endor (I Sam. xxviii. 7), and often treated as her proper name, lit. fem. of pytho "familiar spirit;" which ultimately is connected with the title of the prophetess of the Delphic Oracle, Gk. pythia hiereia, from Pythios, an epithet of Apollo, from Pytho, older name of the region of Delphi (see python).
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