They Can Feel You Coming

Kruse: The crowd gathered on the grass around the man with the bag. In the bag was a 13-foot Burmese python. This was last month, a hot, sunny Saturday morning, in Davie at a University of Florida research center, the official start of the state-sanctioned snake hunt in the Everglades called the Python Challenge.

Gawkers, contestants and cameras waited for the tutorial by Jeff Fobb, a snake expert with Miami-Dade Fire Rescue. He let the python out of the bag but held on to her tail. He pointed out what she wasn't doing. She wasn't trying to attack him. What she was doing was trying to get away. She slithered around the ground. People gasped and took pictures. He quickly grabbed her behind…