Some people just want to get eaten.
A
huge Brazilian anaconda was captured in jaw-dropping video while a trio
of fishermen pulled it out of the river water — nearly getting the
animal stressed to the point of rearing its enormous head and swallowing
them all.
The
group — Sirlei Oliveira, husband Betinho Borges and friend Rodrigo
Santos — were boating down the Santa Maria river, in the southwestern
state of Mato Grosso do Sul, when they came across the huge snake,
reported O Correio News reported.
The
serpent, estimated to be at least 17 feet, is seen moving away from the
tiny boat, its belly appearing full of what must have been a massive
lunch not long earlier.
Then Borges begins to prod the anaconda with a wooden oar as the snake attempts to get away from him.
A Brazilian fisherman is seen in this video pulling an anaconda at least 17 feet long from its hiding pace
The snake thrashes around trying to get away from the man
'Leave it! Oh my god!' yells a hysterical Oliveira in Portuguese as her husband continues to torment the yellow anaconda.
The
snake gets away momentarily, swimming away from the group for a few
seconds before the boat turns around and continues to chase it.
'Grab it, dude, grab it!' instigate Borges as his buddy Santos tries to catch the snake by its tail.
Then
Borges gets over to the boat control — and brazenly begins to take off
as Santos holds on to the snake, pulling the huge animal as
it thrashes around trying to get away.
Santos eventually lets go of the snake and it swims away to freedom.
Environmental police in Mato Grosso do Sul have fined each torturer the equivalent of $600.
They
have also been charged with a crime and face up to a year and a half in
jail if they're convicted under an environmental law that proscribes
the chasing or hunting of wildlife without a license, according to O
Correio.
The anaconda can be seen trying to hide as one of the men pull it by its tail
The couple's lawyer, Amilton Ferreira de Almeida, claimed there was 'no crime committed.'
'The
video shows they didn't intend on committing a crime,' the lawyer told O
Correio about couple's footage, which was posted to Facebook on
Tuesday. 'For it to be a crime, they must have been intent.
'They
wanted to show how nature is, how the animal behaves — but they had no
malice,' the lawyer adds. 'There was guilt, yes, negligence and
recklessness, but not intent.'
But for Major Edmilson Queiroz, of the state's environmental police, being ignorant of the law isn't an excuse.
'The
animal's place is to be quiet in nature, and a man's place is to be
quiet in his corner, each one playing their role in nature,' Queiroz
told O Correio.
'Don't
expose the animals to this as if it's a good thing,' he said of the
publicity the video has gotten. 'This attitude is unnecessary — to try
to promote yourself at the expense of the animal.
Known
in Brazil as 'sucuri,' the species shows in the video was identified by
wildlife experts as the yellow anaconda — one of the smallest cousins
in the family of ginormous South American snakes.
A small portion of the reptile's body is seen as it tries to swim away from its assailant
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