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<@pavelstoev> For decades, Guam has had an invasive brown tree snake problem that completely decimated its native bird population and then some. Your wife's proposed solution reminded me of something the military actually tried: parachute thousands of dead mice "pumped full of painkillers" across the island...no joke[1].

I suppose the key difference in liability here is: see a dead mouse on Guam, hope your pet doesn't eat it...see one of your wife's rabbits (live or dead) in Florida, immediately cordon off and notify local UXO disposal team.

[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/two-thousand-mice-dropp...

<@pavelstoev> I thank you friend for that good laugh.. Hats off to you and your wife. May her idea never see the light of VC funding though.

<@pavelstoev> Oh oh oh, alternative title, Monty Pythons Exploding Circus!

<@pavelstoev> Hare Trigger is hilariously genius. Your wife seems cool.

<@pavelstoev> Why would they explode?

<@sampton> Pythons in SW Florida are found to have dangerously high levels of mercury[0] so it may not be as perfectly good as hoped for.

[0]https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31256202/

<@sampton> Consider water spinach[1]---a.k.a. swamp weed in Florida, but also known as kangkung amongst Asian households---to which the USDA apparently classifies as a "noxious weed". It can be prepared for consumption in many ways, but I especially love it in a Filipino sour soup dish called sinigang[2].

If you want to buy this "noxious weed" in Florida (or anywhere in CONUS, for that matter), you'll need to skip Walmart and make a trip to your local Asian produce store, where it can be found profitably sold for pennies on the dollar. Why? At face value, the ethnic majority simply don't consume this green, and in any case, its natural supply far outstrips market demand, making it far less attractive for most sellers to justify retaining inventory.

Now consider pythons that have invaded the Florida Everglades. Suppose the market for this were to flip in a similar way that beef oxtail has: a cut of "trash" meat historically shunned by the ethnic majority (but favored by certain ethnic minorities and the poor for its low cost and exceptional flavor) which has seen a major market repricing upward driven by the popularity of certain ethnic dishes. Or how short ribs (kalbi) and skin-on pork belly (samgyupsal) have seen significant upward repricing and market availability as KBBQ restaurants grow in popularity throughout the country (fire suppression equipment and commercial fire code compliance being primary enablers around my locality).

In the case of beef/pork cuts, the market simply recognizes value and prices are set consistent with supply/demand...it's just optimizing margins on an existing large scale process.

But would such a scenario really work out when the source of meat is an invasive species that Florida is looking to wholesale exterminate? I mean if the market wins, the state has a problem; and if the state wins, it's difficult to imagine how the market naturally materializes. Gator tail in the South is the closest proxy equivalent I can think of, but for all intents and purposes, it's a novelty dish which has hardly gained market traction at scale.

I don't know...random food for discussion, so to speak.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipomoea_aquatica

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinigang

<@sampton> Before the advent of sushi, tuna was a low-value catch, mostly used for cat food and such. I don't see why python meat cannot be used similarly.

<@sampton> Feed it to pigs and eat the pigs?

<@sampton> There is very little meat on a snake.

<@anadem> Well, they do say it's taking longer for the tracked males to find mates, so that is encouraging. Although it also says the range has expanded so who knows.

<@genter> Fucked? You do know that nature has been moving animals around in all sorts of invasive ways for much longer than we've been here to contribute. It's nothing new or globally catastrophic. The pythons are a contextual problem to some species, but otherwise, meh. The world and its ecosystems are quite a bit more robust than some people give them credit for, at least enough that lots of pythons in a new place don't lead to "the planet is fucked".