OLN series will send slithers up your spine

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This article was published 02/07/2011 (5531 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

IT’S a guy thing. Burmese pythons have invaded the Everglades, and it’s down to three snake-hunting dudes to figure out which end’s up in the homegrown docu-reality series Python Hunters, premiering today on Canada’s Outdoor Life Network.

These are stern-faced, manly men with a mission on their minds. The state of Florida has evidently issued just 15 permits to so-called “snake experts” to wade through the Everglades and scour the murky depths for scaly critters, which could easily nail their pursuers or get nailed themselves. The manly men in Python Hunters, we’re told right off the bat, “got permits numbers 1, 2 and 3.” Clearly, these are serious dudes.

Shawn Heflick, a biologist by trade, has been chasing, studying and breeding reptiles his entire life. “I’ve never been afraid of snakes,” Heflick says in Python Hunters‘ opening moments, proving that brains don’t necessarily come with brawn. Of course, a Burmese python isn’t quite as threatening to a grown man as, say, a black mamba, so Heflick, clearly, isn’t as reckless as he lets on. Python Hunters wouldn’t last long as a TV show if its star biologist got nailed in its first episode.

Greg Graziani is introduced as “an exotic reptile breeder and cop,” so you know going in that he’s not to be messed with. If a citizen dials 911 complaining of terrible sounds emanating from the house next door, and it’s rattler county, this is the guy who’s most likely to show up at the door. “I got my first Burmese python when I was 12 years old,” he says. Or was it the other way around?

Finally, there’s Michael Cole, introduced as “a python-breeding pro.” Evidently, there’s so much demand for python breeders that they can now be officially classified as “amateur” and “pro.” Cole has a nasty scar on his left cheek SEmD in Python Hunters’ opening hour, at any rate — so it’s clear that something, or someone, nailed him somewhere along the way, but he lived to tell about it. “I’ve learned about reptiles the hard way. I didn’t go to school for it,” he says.

And so begins Python Hunters. The opener takes place on Tree Island in the middle of Florida’s Everglades, but this tropical island doesn’t have much in the way of hotels or beaches. Admittedly, when Heflick grabs his first snake, it’s a truly frightening sight.

There’s also an environmental moral to Python Hunters. Burmese pythons are invasive species, not native to Florida’s tropical wetlands, and they’re wreaking havoc on a delicate ecosystem that’s already under threat from climate change, industrial pollution and encroachment by human development. Area farmers are not amused, as one tells the filmmakers: “I don’t have a snake; I don’t want a snake for a pet. I don’t like any snakes, to be honest with you.”

Sure, as a straight TV show, Python Hunters may not be as educational as The Nature of Things, but it’s wild entertainment just the same, especially when seen from the safety of your couch. There’s an important message there, too, about how it’s not nice to fool with Mother Nature. After all, those manly men may not always be there when you need them.

— Postmedia News

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