Illegal Eighty Pound Albino Burmese Python captured in York County

DIF&W LogoThe most recent edition of the monthly newsletter of Maine’s Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife includes this story:

Game Wardens Cody Lounder, Eric Blanchard, Deputy Warden Harry Wiegman, and Sargeant Tim Spahr seized four illegally possesses snakes from an apartment in Biddeford. One snake, an Albino Burmese Python, is illegal in Maine and on the Federal restricted species list. This snake weighed 80 pounds and was 11 feet long.

Yikes!

The newsletter includes other interesting stories, including an investigation into the shooting of three moose near Canada Falls Lake. There are stories on the department’s ongoing (and often futile) effort to rid Maine waters of illegally stocked gold fish, on trap netting at Rangeley Lake, and on the agency’s program to reduce coyote populations in key areas.

Of most interest to me was a story on the capture and use of Nesowadnehunk Lake native brook trout to produce hatchery trout for stocking in waters around the state, especially in Baxter Park. My camp is on Nesowadnehunk Lake, so I have an intense interest in this project. They tried to use trout from our lake in the past, but found that they wouldn’t eat in a hatchery environment. Apparently they’re doing better now. At least according to this report.

You can read the entire newsletter here.

George Smith

About George Smith

George stepped down at the end of 2010 after 18 years as the executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine to write full time. He writes a weekly editorial page column in the Kennebec Journal and Waterville Morning Sentinel, a weekly travel column in those same newspapers (with his wife Linda), monthly columns in The Maine Sportsman magazine, two outdoor news blogs (one on his website, georgesmithmaine.com, and one on the website of the Bangor Daily News), and special columns for many publications and newsletters. Islandport Press published a book of George's favorite columns, "A Life Lived Outdoors" in 2014. In 2014, George also won a Maine Press Association award for writing the state's bet sports blog. In 2016, Down East Books published George's book, Maine Sporting Camps, and Islandport Press published George and his wife Linda's travel book, Take It From ME, about their favorite Maine inns and restaurants.