Snake Tries To Eat Boy, Is Fought Off By Boy's Grandfather

More reason I celebrate the extinction of certain species:

A 66-year-old man saved his grandson from the grip of a 16-foot-long (5 meter) anaconda by beating the snake with rocks and a knife for half an hour, authorities said Thursday.

"When I saw the snake wrapped around my grandson's neck I thought it was going to kill him," Joaquim Pereira told Brazil's Agencia Estado news service. "It was agonizing, I pulled it from one side, but it would come back on the other."

Pereira's 8-year-old grandson, Mateus, was attacked by the anaconda while wandering near a creek on his grandfather's ranch in the city of Cosmorama, about 250 miles (400 kilometers) northwest of Sao Paulo.

While the boy was playing with friends, the snake attacked and wrapped itself around him, police officer Hudson Augusto said. Anacondas are not poisonous, but kill their prey by coiling around them and squeezing until victims suffocate.

"It brought me to the ground and bit me," the boy told Globo TV. "Then it started crawling up my neck and began suffocating me."

Mateus' friends ran to get his grandfather, who reached the scene and battled with the snake until he had hurt it so badly that it let go of his grandson.

That's right, an 16 foot anaconda tried to eat an 8 year old boy. Heartless beast. Global warming will kill of the polar bears, what can I do to destroy these monsters? Deforestation? I'll give it a whirl. Whatever I can do to help.

The picture is of the dead beast, after the boy's 66 year old grandfather killed it.