Only in Florida could the following headline exist: “Officials release robotic marsh bunnies to lure giant invasive Burmese pythons out of the Everglades.”
Yes, you read that correctly. Not Disney animatronics. Not Elon Musk’s latest AI brainchild. Nope. Robot bunnies.
These furry decoys hop, wiggle, and (get this) smell like rabbits so the pythons think, “Dinner’s served.” It’s like Tinder for reptiles: swipe right, get a robot.
Why? Because Burmese pythons have basically turned the Everglades into their personal all-you-can-eat buffet. Officials say they’ve already wiped out 95% of the small mammals. No more raccoons, possums, rabbits, or even marsh hares. Thousands of birds? Gone. It’s like Noah’s Ark in reverse, and the snakes are running the cruise ship.
So now we’ve arrived at the moment in human history where we are deploying fake bunnies as bait. A plotline straight out of a late-night sci-fi comedy: “Attack of the Marshmallow-Scented Androids.”
And honestly, I have questions.
1. Do the robots come in different bunny personalities? Like “shy woodland rabbit” versus “cocky Energizer Bunny who just keeps going”?
2. What happens when a python eats one? Robo-indigestion? A warranty claim?
3. Also, who is responsible for spritzing these things with Eau de Rabbit #5?
As a psychologist, I can’t help but think the metaphor writes itself. Humans create problems (hello, imported pythons) and then build fake animals to fix them. It’s absurd, ingenious, and a little terrifying. Kind of like most of life.
Meanwhile, the snakes are probably thinking: “Wow, dinner smells better than ever, but why does it taste like RadioShack?”
Only in Florida, friends. Only in Florida.
Categories: current events, Pop Culture, Psychology, society, weird
psychologistmimi 
I confess this did make me laugh but I know the pythons are a serious issue.
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Serves them right for letting ‘businessmen’ import snakes – not that its possible to close borders to every trafficker of ‘pets’ which are abandoned by their ‘owners’ – IN THEIR OWN BACKYARDS! – when they get too big.
Are the fake rabbits going to carry an engineered virus? A charge which blows up? Knives which destroy the snakes from within (painfully – until PETA finds out)? Or just rust in place?
I thought you were going to write about the concentration camps the current administration was building in the sweatiest, humidist, most horrible place in a state with no regard for human rights. The monster was inaugurated in JANUARY, for heaven’s sake!
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