Huge Snake Found In St. Augustine Neighborhood

[wcreptiles]

Idiots killed this big beautiful Diamondback; could have been saved. The 'professional trapper' should be fired. Comments by 'the public' included below. Pictures also.

Huge Snake Found In St. Augustine Neighborhood (PIC)
By Adam Kirk - Morning News Producer @ October 1, 2009 4:30 AM Permalink | Comments (13)
It's thicker than your arm... and taller than most basketball players... and it was found in a St. Augustine neighborhood.
The 7 foot 3 inch Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake made its way into Tuscany Village, off State Road 16 and I-95.

When someone spotted it, they called police, who called a professional trapper.

Brandon Booth caught it and killed it.


"When I got there, I looked at it and said, 'That's bigger than 6 feet,'" Booth said. "I didn't have time to really think. I just jumped out of the truck with my gig and got him. He wasn't going to get away."


Photos Courtesy of our news partner Channel 4 and Jason Huntley.
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Comments by 'the public'.
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What others are sayingOMG!!
That snake killer rocks!!! Forget PITA on this one!!!
By Ashley @ 10/01/09 03:34:23 PMreport abusehuge snake

Are you people crazy!!!. This snake was big enought to eat a human. It should have been killed. Thanks to the men that caught and killed this snake before it killed someone.
By snake hater @ 10/01/09 01:45:14 PMreport abusesnake

All I have to say to all you nah sayers is....would you want to find it in your community or your back yard? If you would then the next time get yourself on the list to receive one!
By Robin @ 10/01/09 01:05:03 PMreport abuseSNAKE

WHAT??? FORGET ABOUT THE RECORD, SOMEONE COULD OF BEEN KILLED, PEOPLE JUST DON'T THINK SOMETIME.
By SARAH @ 10/01/09 11:38:16 AMreport abuseSNAKE

WHAT? WHO CARES ABOUT THE RECORD, WHEN SOMEONE COULD OF BEEN KILLED BY IT, "NO THINKING", JUST STUPIDITY.
By SARAH @ 10/01/09 11:32:26 AMreport abuseThats a BFS!!!

Why did he kill this friend of Maximo? He had to have this baby fileted and on ice prior to the concession stand opening up on Friday night at St Augustine H.S. The yellow jackets take on Ponte Vedra Friday night and 7 p.m. They will have a sushi bar and deep fryer featuring specials on local favorite cuisine. Deep fried rattle snake and a bottle of San Sebastian winerie's best for $10. Rumor has it that Brandon is making a special trip to the Alligator farm around midnight tonight so he can fill out the menu. Go support the yellow jackets and pick up a special or two.
By Don from St. Augustine @ 10/01/09 11:30:17 AMreport abuse

Untimely Death
Should not have killed it, was nearly a world record. Just shy of a foot.
Idiots...
By Owen @ 10/01/09 10:07:19 AMreport abuseSnake
You're all crazy. This snake could've easily killed one of my toddlers, or me for that matter. The only good 7 foot long venomous snake is a dead one.
By Bluejay32204 @ 10/01/09 09:36:20 AMreport abuseHuge Snake.

You know, its really funny that St. Augustine is home to the Alligator Farm. There are people there running around in a pit of alligators with only a little stick. They are handled very well. So why couldn't this snake be taken there? If the guys were not permitted to transport the snake, I'm sure there are people that are. Why kill the snake just because they found it in a neighborhood?
By Jay @ 10/01/09 08:51:00 AMreport abuse

Snake
Should have taken him over to the Alligator Farm. Would have been a great addition to their snake collection.
By Glenn @ 10/01/09 08:49:50 AMreport abusesnake

They couldn't have taken that snake back to a woods? I thought it was endangered?
By Michael Brown @ 10/01/09 08:40:12 AMreport abuse

I dont understand why we continue to destroy these large and rare creatures...i.e. this snake and the 16 ft aligator last week
By T. Miller @ 10/01/09 08:04:15 AMreport abuseBig Snake!

Should have kept him alive and took him to the Sweetwater, TX rattle snake round-up. Would have made some money...
By Pigpen @ 10/01/09 07:21:36 AMreport abuse

http://wokv.com/localnews/2009/10/huge-snake-found-in-st-augusti.html

 

[Redstormlax12]

I cant stand the ignorant public. I wish i could just scream at these people, even though it wouldnt help. Its awful that such an animal like that is killed. And great job by the "trapper". If death was the snakes fate why didnt the cops just run it over? or maybe shoot it. And i love how someone says it could have eaten a human. Hahaha. Its just plain ignorance and it has no excuse.

 

[DAND]

What a jackass!! Is there any wonder why I hate people more and more every day?

 

[WHKRAZYK]

Ignorance is exactly the problem. Lack of facts to back up their thought process. Now everyone thinks that snakes have a built in toddler senser, and its only a matter of time till they find one.

 

[Heather82]

Ugh. What effing idiots. I bet that was a gorgeous snake too. Damn.

 

[R. Eventide]

What a jackass!! Is there any wonder why I hate people more and more every day?

This. This soooo many times over!!!!

ARGH. And look at the guy, holding up the snake and grinning like a big, dumb fool. "Lookie here! I killed this man-eatin' snake with my superior trappin' skillz! I'm hot stuff!"

Yeah, killing beautiful creatures for no reason whatsoever is something to be proud of.

It's like the people around here who run over rattlesnakes with their vehicles...on purpose. Yeah, y'all are so manly and impressive. You can smush a four-foot snake with a Hummer. Congrats.

 

[4npower]

It really is sad and happens more often then you could imagine. having lived in florida for the past 10 years and growing up there as a child, very seldom do venomous snakes survive once law enforcement is contacted. it doesn't matter who you call, the police, local animal trapper, or even reptile specialist's, 9 times out of 10 if its a venomous snake, it is killed on the spot. time and time again i have witnessed police officers pull what i call a "machete duct taped to a rake handle" out of thier trunks and simply whack the snakes head off. i have even tried to intervene with the police and ask if i can capture the snake and relocate it deep into the woods away from the public and the officer asked......"do you have a permit to handle venomous snakes?"....then he cut the snake in half right in front of me. very sad indeed and yes most people think that ALL venomous snakes want to do is break into thier house and go room to room biting and killing thier family lol.
this doesn't even cover all the "rednecks" and back woods "hicks" that get drunk and go looking for venomous snakes to kill with thier buddies. i'm surprised that this snake was "allowed" to get this large without being killed previously....had to be a beauty.

 

[bcherps]

Hey All,

Ever since my last dog bite I have been pretty nervous about dogs comming in my yard so I have taking up gigging them now as my way to feel safe.

Should have seen the yorkie I got yesterday, those things are fast, took me three jabs, but you know it was comming right for me.

I was so excited I forgot to take a picture to show my neighbors my prize catch on a stick.....i mean dangerous critter that we had no time to humanely trap and remove.

thanks
ben cole

 

[Heather82]

Hey All,

Ever since my last dog bite I have been pretty nervous about dogs comming in my yard so I have taking up gigging them now as my way to feel safe.

Should have seen the yorkie I got yesterday, those things are fast, took me three jabs, but you know it was comming right for me.

I was so excited I forgot to take a picture to show my neighbors my prize catch on a stick.....i mean dangerous critter that we had no time to humanely trap and remove.

thanks
ben cole

 

[DAND]

Hey All,

Ever since my last dog bite I have been pretty nervous about dogs comming in my yard so I have taking up gigging them now as my way to feel safe.

Should have seen the yorkie I got yesterday, those things are fast, took me three jabs, but you know it was comming right for me.

I was so excited I forgot to take a picture to show my neighbors my prize catch on a stick.....i mean dangerous critter that we had no time to humanely trap and remove.

thanks
ben cole

Had that EDB been around that Yorkie wouldn't have had a chance.

 

[casketmaker]

By Owen @ 10/01/09 10:07:19 AMreport abuseSnake
You're all crazy. This snake could've easily killed one of my toddlers, or me for that matter. The only good 7 foot long venomous snake is a dead one.
By Bluejay32204 @ 10/01/09 09:36:20 AMreport abuseHuge Snake

SOUNDS LIKE ONE OF THE BAD REDNECK MOTHERS YOU ALWAYS HEAR ABOUT IN FLORIDA. IF YOU ARE WATCHING YOUR TODDLER, LIKE A GOOD PARENT WOULD BE, IT WOULD BE KINDA HARD FOR A 7 FOOT DIAMONDBACK TO JUST SNEAK UP ON HIM.

IN FLORIDA THEY DON'T SEEM TO KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TRAPPING AND HUNTING.

Just my 2 cents.

Marc Johnson

 

[Redstormlax12]

Are you people crazy!!!. This snake was big enought to eat a human. It should have been killed. Thanks to the men that caught and killed this snake before it killed someone.
By snake hater @ 10/01/09 01:45:14 PMreport abusesnake]

I think this is my favorite comment. A 7 foot rattler that can eat a human. Haha. Cant get much more ignorant than this. Its just sad people actually think like that.

 

[bcherps]

Hey All,

All the joking set aside from my first post, since I live in Florida, I think I have done enough people watching to add my $.02.

Its the added effect of rednecks plus transplants.

I grew up thirty years ago in rural Maine, and as any father should my dad taught me how to hunt, fish, and how to manage our pasture land/crop land/ wooded plot so everything was sustainable.


Well what I see down here is that the rednecks don't really care about whats left and what isn't, because they claim that the transplants are going to strip mall it all so they might as well do their thing for as long as they can.

Then you have the transplant people who when they came to a new environment they didn't teach their kids about the woods and the animals and whats balancing what. I know guys that have walls full of deer mounts but have never taken their kid into the woods. So instead of that kid growing up respecting animals and our responsibility to manage them correctly, they are out their running them over, shooting them for fun, and cutting down every tree on their 1 acre plot oblivious to what is going to happen to the ecosystem in our time.

And especially in Florida where you are measured as a kid, and if you can throw a ball you are automatically stamped "pass" on the neck, and the rest of kids are left to sit for 15 years being taught with textbooks such as "people" magazine. How are they supposed to know what is in their back yard.

And it goes all the way up the chain to people who are in power. Two examples:

1. After a 4-5 year hietus I started saltwater fishing about two years ago here. Now I was checked by a federal agent this summer and he went up and down my boat, and quizzed me on about 15 different areas from circle hooks, to the length my flounder had to be, etc etc etc. Then when we got to inspecting my fish cooler and he tried to mislead me on the identification of a blue runner versus a juvenile bluefish to see if I knew what he was talking about. Although the reason for FFWCC to ban all the insular types of dwarf retics is becuase "they can't tell the difference". By law I have to know my fish I'm catching but they dont have to know the snakes they are regulating.

2. A couple years ago I sat in on the Captive Wildlife Technical Advisory Committee meetings that were making suggestions to FFWCC about various animals and updating laws. This panel has everyone on it from reptile industry people to FFWCC to Animal Kingdom, to veterinarians, to HSUS people on it. Well, the issue of where camians should be in the permit realm came up and a question was raised by one of the panel members of why the black camian was in the most stringent class and others in the most relaxed class. No one had experience with them so they shuffled it to the state vet, where she proceeded to tell everyone that black camian only get six feet and not difficult to house, etc etc. When in fact they are one of the largest croc's and they are insanely difficult to house due to psychological stress since there flight response is about a 1/8 mile.


So it all comes down to is who is teaching our kids, our neighbors, and our people in power about animals? Commercials on t.v promoting dogs and cats, and commericials by HSUS that all other animals are bad.


thanks for putting up with my rambling rant
ben

 

[ForkedTung]

Sad, That snake looked a lot bigger than seven foot?

 

[KimsGeckos]

Poor snake. Such a beautiful animal shouldn't have to die like that.

It is such an uphill battle to protect our venomous reptiles. I feel like for every rattlesnake I move off the road, or drive out to someone's house to move one off their property free of charge, hundreds more are slaughtered and most people are happy about it.

 

[Rattlesnake]

What a horrific waste of life.
What a really beautiful Diamondback, sure would have liked to see it while it was still alive.