Strange bedfellows

LITTLE ROCK — I wonder if the National Rifle Association is paying attention to Florida’s coming snake hunt in the Everglades.

If so, the gun-rights group would be happy to discover a surprising new ally in the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. The animal-welfare group has adopted a guns-are-better-thanmachetes approach to killing Burmese pythons.

This must be music to the ears of the NRA, which has long embraced a more-guns approach to better living in Florida.

PETA’s concern with the month-long Python Challenge, which began Saturday, is that scores of bounty-hungry amateurs will be roaming through the Florida wilderness looking for big snakes to kill, and doing it in a less-than-humane manner.

The contest rules of the state-sanctioned hunt in the Everglades, and the Francis S. Taylor, Holey Land, Rotenberger and Big Cypress wildlife management areas, specify that the hunters must kill the snakes in order to be eligible for a prize. The contest awards $1,500 to the hunter who kills the most Burmese pythons and $1,000 for the hunter who kills the longest snake.

The rules say snakes may be killed by decapitation with a “machete or other appropriately sharp tool” as long as the decapitated snake’s brain is then quickly destroyed.

“The central nervous system of a python (and all reptiles) is tolerant to low oxygen and low blood pressure conditions . . . and so the brain of a python can remain active for up to an hour even after decapitation, thus allowing the snake to experience pain,” the contest rules say. “Because the goal is to minimize the snake’s suffering, the brain should be quickly destroyed.”

The animal-welfare group, in a letter to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, suggested that the state agency is giving hunters too much leeway when it imagines that these 16-foot snakes could be decapitated in a swift, humane manner by an army of novice reptile stalkers. And it might not only lead to extra pain and suffering for the snakes but potentially more injuries to the human contestants.

“PETA urges the commission to err on the side of caution and limit authorized methods of killing to gunshots and use of a captive bolt gun,” the letter said.

Are you listening, NRA?

I believe this is a marketing strategy yet to be tried in the NRA’s attempt to prop up the gun-manufacturing industry, regardless of the carnage that it creates.

Instead of the usual fear-based marketing scheme, the NRA could follow PETA’s lead and start to promote gun sales as an extension of kindness.

Think of it as “standing your ground with compassion.”

The NRA ought to write the animal-welfare group a thank-you letter.

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Frank Cerabino writes for the Palm Beach Post.