Natural Histories: Eating Habits in the Everglades

According to a report from BBC news, a non-native python exploded while eating a whole alligator in the Florida Everglades. This story is super-dear to my heart- a tale of gluttony and grotesque animal interactions set in the hinterland of my homeland, sweet sweet Florida. Plus, the snapshot of the carnage totally looks like a metal album cover.

Pretty hardcore, right? The gator got posthumous revenge and RIPPED RIGHT THROUGH THAT FUCKER!

Gator sightings are nothing unusual for me- we once had a wee gator take a dip our pool at home, you can see them on every Florida golf course, and once a good family friend was called in by the police to identify an alligator she saw while running that later attacked and killed an old man (really, I'm not joking. Alligator homicide is the real deal in the F-L-A).

This little bit of BBC "badassery in nature" is actually a bit distressing though; it is actually a hardcore Aesop fable for the ecological shitstorm of modern times. The truth is that the pythons of the Everglades are only there because the serpent pets of hick kids in the Florida swamps got loose- they were never there before- that's yet another unfortunate imbalance in an ecosystem that's suffering from all the fucked up things the state government allows to happen to the 'glades. The news story is basically a mini-metaphor for the encroachment on swampy wonderland. I remember when I used to travel with my family to visit my grandmother from the West to the East coast along "Alligator Alley", a long highway that cuts through the state which gets its name for the reptiles that litter the swamps on the sides of the roads, I would pass the time on the drive by counting each alligators I saw- it was a long-ass drive. Now, crossing the state a lot of that gator land has been lost to new shitty Florida housing developments and other insta-build shitholes. It's actually pretty sad to see your home state go from a fucked up paradise to a fucked up stripmall due to the appetite of the proverbial python of "progress".

Perhaps once the endtimes come (so soon!) the gators will burst from our bellies and reclaim their homeland. In the meantime, I suppose people on those terrible touristy airboats should be more afraid of falling into the water and getting swallowed by a snake than getting chomped by an alligators.