[Rick Lee]

About three wks. ago I gave away my 6' Boa, which I'd had since she was a hatchling in 1995. Obviously, I've seen her eat a lot. I've fed her gerbils, rats and even birds a few times, which I had caught in my exhaust fan (hey, free meal!). No need to kill a snake after it's killed its food. Snakes are amoral and will kill anything they think they can swallow if they're hungry and not about to shed. It's just their nature. They have no ears and can't hear you yell at it to stop. Once they've gotten a decent bite on a prey, there's absolutely no rescuing whatever it has wrapped around. Constrictors don't start swallowing until they've deteced no heartbeat in the prey for a few minutes and even then, they have to hunt around to find the head, which they always swallow first. They have very bad eyes and this can sometimes take a while. Yes, it's sad to lose a family pet. But just like the headless rabbit from yesterday's thread, animals play by very different rules and it's incredibly naive and arrogant for humans to be surprised by it. It really is a jungle out there and we're very spoiled by being on top of the food chain. Unlike dogs, which are trainable, pet snakes don't understand that their owner will bring them a few rats home from the pet store to eat every few weeks. They are born to kill and they do it very efficiently.