Huge rattlesnake found near St. Augustine
A resident at Tuscany Village townhomes near Florida 16 and Interstate 95 at St. Augustine called Booth, who owns A-1 Trapper Man, on Sunday to come get the snake from near the entrance to the development.
"Actually, I've killed them bigger than that before," he said. "It's rare, [but] it's not like hitting the lottery or anything. If you look hard enough, you'll find them."
St. Johns County deputies were also called to the scene, and they photographed the snake, an eastern diamondback rattler.
Their photos were published in The Record on Wednesday and made it appear longer than what Booth measured it at.
The largest eastern diamondback recorded was 8 feet long.
OK that puts this one in the same league as the 8-footer I slayed in Mississippi - read the rest of it HERE
More from the Truth-Is-Stranger-Than-Fiction Department:
Officials question California hiker’s story about being saved from mountain lion attack by bear
Robert Biggs, 69, said he was watching a mama bear play with her cubs in the mountains above Whiskey Flats, north of Sacramento, last Monday when a mountain lion pounced on his back and began clawing at his arm.
Biggs said the mama bear quickly came to his aid by swatting the cougar off his back before it did any serious damage.
But over the weekend, state Fish and Game Commission said they suspected Biggs’ bear tale was bull.
“The evidence right now says inconclusive, but he lives in mountain lion country,” Andrew Hughan, a spokesperson for the agency, told CBS Sacramento.
“There’s never been a case we can document that one animal attacked another to save a person,” Hughan said.
Just for the record I threw out the fifteen-yard bullshit flag on this story BEFORE this follow-on story emerged; what really alerted me was his account of how on an earlier occasion the mama bear let him approach and touch her cubs. NO WAY KNOWN - every bear in North America has lost a mother, father, sister or brother to humans - bears FEAR and HATE humans more than we fear them. Read the whole thing HERE
Today's Bird HERE
It is possible that the bear swtting the cougar was unrelated to a human being persent - she could have been protecting cubs. More likely his claw marks came from a two-legged cougar, and he told this tale to throw his wife off the track.
ReplyDeleteYou're right about animals fearing us more than we fear them. But I think humans are the only species capable of hating. Animals get pissed off and fight when threatened, but the only lasting feeling they keep about anything that is a threat is to be wary of it or to be on the defensive toward it.