Toddler Killed By Pet Python

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A 2 year old girl has been strangled to death by the family’s escaped pet snake.

Mercury News reports that the unnamed child was announced dead at the scene by paramedics called to the girl’s home in Florida. Although Florida is seeing an invasion of feral Burmese Pythons that have been illegally introduced into the countryside, it is thought to be the family’s own pet that had escaped from it’s vivarium and attacked the child.

The snake is known to have broken out of it’s glass vivarium in the night and gone to the girl’s bedroom as she slept. It wrapped around the girl and crushed the life out of her. A family member discovered the horrific scene in the morning, the snake was still wrapped tightly around it’s prey. The reports of the snake’s status are unclear, one source says the snake was stabbed with a kitchen knife to release the child but it may have survived the stabbing and slithered out of the home.

Florida is being plagued by a rising number of non-native pythons being released into the Everglades by irresponsible reptile owners. A few years ago a Burmese Python was pictured in the Everglades having ruptured it’s stomach attempting to eat an alligator.

Jorge Pino from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission told Mercury News that it was becoming an increasing problem for the area.

“It’s becoming more and more of a problem, perhaps no fault of the animal, more a fault of the human,” Pino said. “People purchase these animals when they’re small. When they grow, they either can’t control them or release them.”

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