Danny Puff

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) Fawad Mohammadi has spent half his life peddling maps and dictionaries to foreigners on a street of trinket shops in Kabul. Now the 14-year-old Afghan boy with bright green eyes is getting ready for a trip down the red carpet at the Oscars.

It will also be his first time out of the country and his first time on a plane.

Mohammadi was plucked from the dingy streets of the Afghan capital to be one of the main stars of "Buzkashi Boys," a coming-of-age movie filmed entirely in a war zone and nominated in the Best Live Action Short Film category.

The movie is about two penniless young boys a street urchin and a blacksmith's son who are best friends and dream of becoming professional players of buzkashi, a particularly rough and dangerous game that somewhat resembles polo: Horseback riders wrangle to get a headless goat carcass into a circular goal at one end of the field.

It's also part of an American director's effort to help revive a film industry devastated by decades of civil war and by the Taliban, an Islamic fundamentalist movement that banned entertainment and burned films and theaters during its five years in power.

Sam French, a Philadelphia native who has lived in Afghanistan for about five years, said his 28-minute movie was initially conceived as a way of training local film industry workers the first installment in his nonprofit Afghan Film Project.

"We never dreamed of having the film come this far and get an Oscar nomination," French, 36, said in a telephone interview from Los Angeles, where he is preparing for the Feb. 24 Academy Awards and raising money to fly the two young co-stars in for the ceremony.

The two boys playing the main characters Mohammadi and Jawanmard Paiz can barely contain their excitement about going to the Oscars.

"It will be a great honor for me and for Afghanistan to meet the world's most famous actors," said Mohammadi, whose real-life dream is to become a pilot. He's also hoping to go see the cockpit during the flight.

The farthest Mohammadi has ever traveled was to the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif when he was younger.

Mohammadi's father died a few years ago, leaving him with his mother, five brothers and a sister. He started selling chewing gum when he was about 7 years old and soon expanded his trade to maps and dictionaries.

He learned to speak English hustling foreigners on Chicken Street, the main tourist area in Kabul with shops selling multicolor rugs, lapis bowls and other crafts and souvenirs, and gained a reputation for being polite, helpful and trustworthy. He was even able to enroll in a private school, thanks to the generosity of some other foreigners unrelated to the film project.

In the movie Mohammadi plays the blacksmith's son, Rafi, whose father wants him to follow in his footsteps.

"His life was so much harder than mine," Mohammadi said. "The blacksmith made him go out on the streets. I came myself here (to Chicken Street). My family didn't make me come. I wanted to make money to feed myself and to feed my family. He didn't have a home. They lived in the blacksmith shop."

Ironically it's not Mohammadi but Paiz, the youngest son of a well-known Afghan actor, who plays the homeless boy Ahmad.

Paiz, also 14, already was an experienced actor: He's appeared in films since the age of 5 and has gone to the Cannes Film Festival.

Paiz and Mohammadi had a lot to learn from each other and became friends. He gave Mohammadi tips for acting and handling himself in live interviews, while Fawad taught him about life outside his sheltered surroundings.

"When I saw Fawad was such a good actor even though he was a street boy and he was so brave in acting, I was very surprised and I said to myself, 'Everybody can achieve what they desire to do,'" Paiz said during an interview this week, shivering in the snow-covered courtyard of the Afghan Film Institute while a local TV series was being filmed nearby.

French, who co-wrote the script and produced "Buzkashi Boys" with Martin Roe of the Los Angeles-based production company Dirty Robber, launched a fundraising drive that's raised almost $10,000 so far to help bring the boys to Los Angeles for the ceremony. Any extra money will be placed in a fund to provide for Mohammadi's education and help his family. The boys will travel with an escort and will stay with the extended Afghan family of one of the film's producers, French said.

French said he's aware of the pitfalls in working with child actors from developing countries.

The makers of "Slumdog Millionaire," the rags-to-riches blockbuster about three poor Indian children, have struggled to make a better life for the young stars, and four boys who acted in "The Kite Runner" had to leave Afghanistan out of concern they could be ostracized or subject to violence because of a rape scene in the movie.

French said he and others involved in the "Buzkashi Boys" took pains to involve the community and made sure to avoid any scenes that could be offensive.

"We're not filmmakers who just do a film and leave. We remain there and present," he said. "We had lots and lots of tea with lots and lots of people."

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences says there have been three documentary features nominees filmed at least in part in Afghanistan since 2007 all about the U.S. military. The Kite Runner, which was nominated for original score in 2007, was set in Afghanistan but not filmed there.

Afghanistan had a burgeoning film industry starting in the early 20th century, but it suffered from fighting during the civil war and the Taliban campaign to stamp out entertainment. Actors and film industry workers like Paiz's father and the actor who plays the blacksmith, Wali Talash, fled the country. They returned only after the 2001 U.S.-led assault that ousted the Islamic movement and its al-Qaida allies.

Talash, 56, said he hopes the "Buzkashi Boys" will show the world the rich culture of Afghanistan, which too few in the world know beyond reports of roadside bombs and suicide attacks.

"I hope if this movie wins that it will be an earthquake that will shake the industry and help Afghan filmmakers get back on their feet," he said.

Mohammadi, meanwhile, says he knows the money and fame he earned from the movie can carry him only so far. He still sells maps, though not so often as before, because he has school.

"For my work I used to know a lot of foreigners and I still do, but before they used to know me as a map seller. Now they know me as an actor," he said, waving a plastic-covered map as weary Afghans walked by on the muddy street. "Most of them take pictures with me and sometimes they buy maps from me even if they don't need any just because they spotted me in the movie."

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Associated Press writer Steve Loeper in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

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Online:

Fundraising site https://rally.org/buzkashiboys

Film website http://www.buzkashiboys.com/

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TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada's main stock index closed slightly lower on Thursday as a wave of negative sentiment after the European Central Bank warned about weak euro zone economies pulled down energy and financial shares, though shares of BlackBerry jumped.

Shares of BlackBerry rose 5.8 percent after the smartphone maker named two wireless industry veterans to an expanded board of directors, seeking to allay some investor concern around the level of industry experience on the board. An analyst also upgraded the stock.

Investors initially had been buoyed by the European Central Bank's decision to hold its interest rate at 0.75 percent and by a fall in U.S. jobless claims that pointed to a modest improvement in the country's labor market. But sentiment shifted, denting stocks, after ECB President Mario Draghi said policymakers will monitor the impact of a rising currency.

Earnings reports from several Canadian companies also drew attention. Shares of Manulife Financial Corp gained after the insurer reported a quarterly profit, while miner Teck Resources Ltd slipped after its earnings slumped.

"Investors are unsure where to go from here. The earnings numbers on the Canadian side have been okay but not spectacular," said Elvis Picardo, strategist and vice president of research at Global Securities in Vancouver.

The Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index unofficially ended down 5.67 points, or 0.04 percent, at 12,755.92. Four of the 10 main sectors on the index were in the red.

The energy sector gave back 0.4 percent and played the biggest role in leading the market lower. Suncor Energy Inc declined 0.9 percent to C$32.23.

"There is some worry about the outlook for Canadian energy producers for the next few months. That's not something investors want to hear in this environment," Picardo said.

Shares of Teck Resources fell 6 percent to C$34.45 after the diversified miner reported a sharp drop in fourth-quarter earnings as higher copper sales failed to offset the impact of sagging coal prices.

BCE Inc , Canada's biggest telecom provider, reported higher quarterly profit and raised its dividend, helped by its wireless and media divisions and investment gains. But its results were just shy of estimates. The stock slipped 0.2 percent to C$44.43 and weighed on the telecoms sector.

Financials, the index's weightiest sector, slipped 0.1 percent.

Manulife reported a fourth-quarter profit on tax and investment gains, as well as stronger sales of insurance and wealth products in its Asian division. The stock rose 1 percent to C$14.55.

Shares of Shoppers Drug Mart Corp rose 1.1 percent to C$42.10 after the pharmacy chain reported a fourth-quarter sales increase and profit that slightly exceeded expectations.

Gold stocks were among the biggest gainers. Goldcorp Inc added 0.7 percent to C$36.06, and Yamana Gold Inc was up 1.8 percent at C$16.73.

(Editing by Leslie Adler)

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BERLIN (AP) Martial arts epic "The Grandmaster" kicked off the Berlin Film Festival on Thursday, introducing an international audience to Yip Man, the man who mentored Bruce Lee and brought kung fu to the masses.

The movie by Wong Kar-wai is running out of competition because the director also heads this year's jury.

Shanghai-born Wong and his fellow jurors among them American actor-director Tim Robbins will have to choose from 19 movies competing for prizes at the 63rd Berlinale.

These include the Steven Soderbergh thriller "Side Effects" with Jude Law and Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Gus Van Sant's film "Promised Land" about the shale gas industry starring Matt Damon.

Juliette Binoche portrays a troubled French sculptor in "Camille Claudel 1915," while "Gold" tells a tale of German immigrants seeking their luck in late 19th-century North America.

Competing also are romantic thriller "The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman" with Shia LaBeouf and Evan Rachel Wood, and "Closed Curtain" by Iranian film maker Jafar Panahi, who was barred from leaving Iran to attend the festival.

The winner of one award has already been announced. French filmmaker Claude Lanzmann will be honored for his life's work. Lanzmann's nine-and-a-half hour documentary "Shoah" about the horrors of the genocide of European Jews was screened at the festival in 1986.

In total more than 400 films will be shown at the Feb. 7-17 event known for its focus on social and political works.

Jury president Wong said ahead of the festival that Berlin was about the "experience of a true pleasure of sharing ideas" in the cinema.

Speaking Thursday about his own work, Wong told reporters that the biggest challenge while making "The Grandmaster" was the fact that he doesn't practice martial arts himself.

Wong said he was nevertheless drawn to the figure of Yip Man, Bruce Lee's mentor, because of his fortitude in the face of a lifetime of hardship, beginning with his childhood in Imperial China through the revolutionary years and ending in Hong Kong under British colonial rule.

"His life basically is like the modern history of the early days of our republic," said Wong. "During all these periods you can see how a martial artist stands up for his principles and his honor in front of all this hardship"

The international cut of "The Grandmaster" premiering in Berlin has been shortened from the version released in China last year. The film stars Tony Leung ("In the Mood for Love") and Zhang Ziyi, best known internationally for "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."

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Festival website: http://www.berlinale.de

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(Reuters) - BlackBerry will stop selling smartphones in Japan, partly because the company cannot justify the cost of modifying its operating system to accommodate the Japanese language, the Nikkei business daily reported.

BlackBerry's market share in Japan has shrunk to 0.3 percent from 5 percent, the daily said.

BlackBerry could not be immediately reached for comment.

The company, which changed its name from Research In Motion when it launched its new BlackBerry 10 smartphones a week ago, will continue to offer support to existing users, the Nikkei said.

(Reporting by Sayantani Ghosh in Bangalore; Editing by Supriya Kurane)

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NEW YORK (AP) ABC News says Robin Roberts will be back on the job at the "Good Morning America" anchor desk on Feb. 20. Her return will be five months to the day since her bone marrow transplant to treat a rare blood disorder.

Roberts has gotten the all-clear from her doctors, according to the announcement made Thursday on "GMA." She reached the critical 100-day benchmark in December.

In January, she began a series of dry runs at the "GMA" studio to re-acclimate herself to the work routine.

Her last day on "GMA" was Aug. 30 before she started her medical leave.

About a year ago, Roberts began feeling the symptoms of her illness, known as MDS.

She said in a statement: "What a difference a year makes."

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Online:

http://abcnews.go.com/

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BERLIN (Reuters) - Just past midnight behind a Berlin supermarket, two youngsters with torches strapped to their woollen hats sift through rubbish bins for food that is still edible, load their bikes with bread, vegetables and chocolate Santas and cycle off into the darkness.

It is not poverty that inspires a growing number of young Germans like 21-year-old student Benjamin Schmitt to forage for food in the garbage, but anger at loss and waste which the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates at one-third of all food produced worldwide, every year, valued at about $1 trillion.

In environmentally aware, cost-conscious Germany, "foodsharing" is the latest fad, using the Internet to share food recovered from supermarket bins while it is still in good condition.

"Dumpster-diving" for society's cast-offs is a fast-growing phenomenon among sub-cultures in Europe and the United States and "freegans" - vegans who do not believe in paying for food - have long been sifting through supermarket wheelie bins.

But the "foodsharing" movement that has sprung up in cities like Cologne and Berlin brings efficiency and technical skills to the table in ways that make it uniquely German.

More than 8,200 people across Germany have registered to share food on the www.foodsharing.de website in just seven weeks of existence, said Berlin organiser Raphael Fellmer.

The website - which has an appropriately recycled-paper look - advises people where there are "baskets" and what is in them: organic sausages in Cologne or spaghetti and Darjeeling tea in Chemnitz. Members can log in or use a Smartphone app to see the address of nearby baskets or a pick-up time and place. They can then rate the transaction like ordinary online retailers.

For people who cannot afford the Internet, Fellmer has set up the first of what he hopes will be many "hot spots" where food can be picked up anonymously: a fridge at a covered market in Berlin's Kreuzberg, where anyone can help themselves to food.

"I've come for some bread rolls, just a couple," said Frank, an unemployed 47-year-old, who was alerted to the location of a hoard of fresh bread on the website and called at Fellmer's house.

Opening his rucksack, he helped himself from a bag of rolls that had been on sale at a nearby bakery till 7 p.m. the previous evening.

TASTE THE WASTE

Throwing away food is a rich country phenomenon but a poor country's problem.

Camelia Bucatariu, a policy expert on food waste at the FAO in Rome, said North American and European consumers waste 95-115 kg of food per capita a year, compared to just 6-11 kg in sub-Saharan Africa and southeast Asia. As economies develop, the level of food waste grows, said Bucatariu, who is Romanian.

The foodsharers' argument that the tonnes of food wasted in Germany could feed people in poor countries is not as simplistic as it sounds: less waste means less drain on resources in the producer countries and less upward pressure on prices, she said.

"It is not only wasting an apple, but wasting the resources embedded in that apple which may be produced outside of Europe," Bucatariu told Reuters. As well as economic damage there is the cost to the environment of using energy to grow food that ends up in a landfill site, emitting greenhouse gases like methane.

The FAO is studying how to change such behaviour and whether changes are needed to legislation on the retailers' "date marks" differentiating "Best By" from "Use By" - the latter being the date when food may start to become a biological hazard.

Fellmer is on a three-year-old "money strike": he does not earn or spend a euro and he, his wife and child eat only food that has been rescued from the bins.

A rangy 29-year-old in a baggy blue jumper with spiky blond hair and a pointed beard, he is already something of a German media phenomenon. On a recent visit, a TV documentary crew and a reporter from a local daily were crowded into his one-room flat.

He plonks on the table a packet of ginger biscuits for Christmas - from a batch of hundreds fished out of bins nearby - bearing a "use by" date which is still a month away. They taste fine, as do some red and gold-wrapped chocolate Santas.

The "use by" dates infuriate the foodsharers, many of whom were first inspired by the 2011 film "Taste the Waste" by their guru Valentin Thurm.

It documents waste ranging from farmers discarding tomatoes that are not red enough to bakeries burning the excess bread they made to keep the shelves looking full until closing time.

Fellmer's friend Schmitt was brought up in a "very food-conscious vegetarian household". His mother is a food chemist who advises him on hygienic ways to eat and share food from plastic sacks that he admits are sometimes "mushy" under your fingers in the dark.

Like Fellmer, he lives not in east Berlin, with its history of squats and communes, but in the leafy western suburb of Dahlem where he bin-dives under the noses of the German capital's most affluent residents.

Foodsharing appeals to the "hipster" culture of Berlin with its tradition of anti-establishment protest, Schmitt said.

The German crowdsourcing techniques could turn out to be "best practice" for reducing waste in other countries too, said the FAO's Bucatariu.

"Solutions may vary according to the culture, the context and to what access to food there is," she said. "But each and every one of us can do something."

(Additional reporting by Fabrizio Bensch; Editing by Gareth Jones and Sonya Hepinstall)

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LOS ANGELES (AP) Austin Wintory still can't wrap his head around the fact that he's up against "Star Wars" composer John Williams for a Grammy Award.

"Thank God I've been so busy in the last few weeks since the nominations came out because I don't think my brain could ever possibly comprehend that," said the 28-year-old composer. "He's a lifelong idol of mine. I don't think it's something I could have ever even dreamed."

Wintory is facing 80-year-old Williams and his score for "The Adventures Of Tintin" at the Feb. 10 ceremony, as well as the scores to "The Artist" by Ludovic Bource, "Hugo" by Howard Shore, "The Dark Knight Rises" by Hans Zimmer and "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.

The biggest difference between Wintory and his competitors? His score is from a video game.

Wintory's nomination for the artsy PlayStation 3 game "Journey" marks the first time a game score has been nominated for a Grammy. Music from games have been eligible since 2000 when "other visual media" were added to Grammy categories previously reserved for music from film and TV. When the Grammys were overhauled in 2011, the category was renamed to "best score soundtrack album for visual media" to fairly encompass all mediums.

Wintory, a first-time nominee who also creates film scores, sees his nod as an opportunity to showcase the creativity of games.

"I don't have any interest in being that one game soundtrack for someone who doesn't own any game soundtracks," said Wintory. "I can think of no higher purpose than if 'Journey' were to be someone's gateway drug, so to speak, to discovering much more when it comes to interactivity."

The score for "Journey," which casts players as a mysterious scarf-draped figure who wanders a desert landscape, is an exotic mix of mystical and introspective ditties led by powerful cello solos. Wintory said he tweaked and re-tweaked the score for three years with the "Journey" developers from thatgamecompany.

If Wintory wins at the Grammys, he wouldn't be the first game composer to take home a gramophone.

Christopher Tin won the trophy for best instrumental arrangement accompanying vocalists in 2011 for "Baba Yetu," the Swahili-language song originally featured in the 2005 strategy game "Civilization IV." That tune served as the opening track on Tin's debut album, "Calling All Dawns," which was also honored that year as best classical crossover album.

Unlike other awards that honor music from games, the Grammys solely judge game scores on their soundtracks, just like they do for scores from film and TV. Bill Freimuth, the recording academy's vice president of awards, said entries of game scores doubled since the category was renamed to encompass all visual media.

"For some reason, that worked some magic with the video game community," said Freimuth. "They didn't feel like they were outsiders. They were part of the main batch."

Tommy Tallarico, a video game composer and organizer of the "Video Games Live" concert series, was among the artists who originally petitioned the recording academy to add game scores to awards consideration. He believes Wintory's nomination is a landmark not only for composers who craft music for games but also the gaming industry as a whole.

"It really shows that the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences is starting to consider our work art now," said Tallarico. "It's on the same level as film and TV in their eyes, and that's an important first step because a lot of people, when they think of music from video games, they still think of beeps and bloops. That's not the reality anymore."

Freimuth of the recording academy said that while video game composers have lobbied for their own category in the past, it's an unlikely proposition given the current amount of submissions the academy receives from game composers. Besides, this year's awards have proven that a score from a game has no problem earning a nomination alongside a score from a film.

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Online:

http://www.grammy.com

http://thatgamecompany.com/games/journey/

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Follow AP Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/derrikjlang.

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Hong Kong (Reuters) - When a king cobra lunges at Chau Ka-ling as the door to its wooden cage falls open in her busy Hong Kong restaurant, she just laughs, then pulls it gently into her arms.

For Chau is a "snake king," one of scores in Hong Kong who have through generations tamed snakes to make soup out of them, a traditional cuisine believed to be good for the health.

Yet the people behind providing fresh snakes for the savoury meal thought to speed up the body's blood flow and keep it strong in the cold winter months may be doomed, with young people increasingly reluctant to take on a job they see as hard and dirty.

"He is my boss, he supports my living," said Chau of the snake she cradled at Shia Wong Hip, a popular shop that serves over 1,000 bowls of hot snake soup on the busiest winter days.

Trained by her father in childhood to handle snakes, Chau, now in her early 50s, took over the business he founded, serving up a small bowl of soup for 35 Hong Kong dollars (2.8 pounds).

From boiling the essence out of snake, chicken and pig bones, to spicing it up with an array of ingredients that include five types of snake meat, the traditional southern Chinese snack can take more than six hours to make.

Yet as the cold deepens in the weeks leading up to the Chinese New Year and the Year of the Snake it ushers in on February 10, Hong Kong locals huddle inside small street shops like hers.

The thick soup is flavoured with hints of lemongrass, while the snake itself tastes like chicken but is tougher.

"Snake soup can help you stay healthy, and when the weather is cold it helps keep you from catching the flu," said customer Stephen Lau.

While soup stalls remain popular, scattered across the former British colony, retail snake shops have diminished to a slithery few, such as the 110-year-old She Wong Lam.

Inside, more than 100 snakes lie quietly in wooden cupboards labelled "poisonous snakes" as the clicks of an abacus echo through the dimly lit shop.

Shop owner Mak Tai-kong, 84, has been working there for 64 years. He sells an average of 100 snakes a week to restaurants and snake soup shops that could otherwise buy pre-butchered meat, but prefer the freshness he offers.

Over the decades, he has trained about 20 people to become snake handlers - and said he has a few tried and true tips to help people put aside their fear of the venomous creatures, including starting them out on snakes whose fangs have been pulled and thus are no longer dangerous.

"Then, after he has been bitten a couple times by a snake that is no longer poisonous, he will think, 'Oh, this is not painful, this is nothing, this is like being bitten by an ant,'" Mak said.

"Then he will no longer be scared, and as he works more he will get more used to it."

But new blood is hard to find. The youngest employee in the shop has now been there more than 30 years.

"There won't be many. Firstly, it's crummy and dirty, and snakes smell," Mak said. "Secondly, the wages aren't high. So not many people enter the field."

Mak feels his job is less about making money and more about providing a service to society by keeping a tradition alive.

Yet even fellow "snake king" Chau says she has no successors trained, and in fact has refused to do so.

"I've killed snakes for so many year, but actually I don't want to. Because there are fewer and fewer snakes now," she said. "But I can't make a career change. There's nothing else I can do."

(Reporting by Venus Wu; Editing by Elaine Lies and Paul Casciato)

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LONDON (AP) No wonder they're endangered.

Galapagos tortoises at London's zoo lumbered around impassively as famous French pianist Richard Clayderman serenaded them with music from his latest album, "Romantique."

The music an attempt Thursday to put the reptiles in the mood to mate appeared lost on the slow-moving giants.

Even a rousing rendition of "Chariots of Fire" did little to lift the tortoise's spirits. They only seemed to perk up when zookeepers brought them some carrots.

Galapagos tortoises are the largest in the world and can live for over 150 years. But the gentle animals have struggled to fend off predators and are now under threat.

Clayderman said that it was "funny to be here."

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Burmese python (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK, Fla. -- On a lonely road stretching for miles through this vast reptile-infested wilderness, a silver Toyota Matrix screeches to a halt next to a wide pond surrounded by tall brown grass. Two men in their 20s, Josh Holbrook and Jason Thullbery, kick open their doors and spill onto the pavement. Holbrook, the driver, forgets to shift the transmission into park and lunges back through the window to stop the car from rolling into the water. From the backseat, Thullbery's wife Hannah points to the far end of the murky pond, where a 12-foot green and brown strip of flesh suns itself on the bank.

"Python!" she squeals. "Across the water!"

Holbrook squints at the reptile while scanning the marshland for a passage to the other side. It's at least one hundred yards away.

"I think we got one," he says.

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The Florida Everglades has a severe invasive species problem, and the Burmese python, a snake that can stretch to 23 feet and weigh 200 pounds, is one of the park's biggest headache. The python, which is unnatural to the region, began showing up in the state's marshes and glades in the early 1990s and its hungry offspring have depleted the region's wildlife population. It is estimated that there are as many as 100,000 pythons slithering in the wild, and there aren't nearly enough snake hunters on the ground to make meaningful progress.

This year, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission launched The Python Challenge, a competition that brings Burmese python hunting to the masses. From Jan. 12 through Feb. 10 it is open season on the species, luring more than 1,500 people to hunt snakes in exchange for thousands of dollars in cash prizes.

During the Python Challenge, anyone can become a legal python hunter by spending $25 on entry fees and passing an online test. But three weeks into the competition, only 50 pythons have been bagged. In this long war between predator and prey, the hunted have the upper hand.

Holbrook, a graduate student at Florida Atlantic University and author of a field guide on South Florida snakes, has spent years trudging through the state's glades and forests. He and Thullbery aren't officially participating in the Python Challenge, but he has a special research permit that grants him access to the Everglades to collect pythons. Since 2008, Holbrook has caught more than 50 alone, which he delivers to state authorities.

Now, as he races along the dark pond, he's hoping to make one more addition.

Jason Thullbery hunts Burmese pythons in the Florida Everglades. (Chris Moody/Yahoo News)

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There are many theories as to what brought the troublesome pythons into the state. Some blame Hurricane Andrew, which freed dozens of snakes from their owner's enclosures when it tore through South Florida in 1992. Some also blame irresponsible pet owners who bought a cute baby python only to discover that, as most living creatures do, they grow. Fed up, the owners let them sliver into the Everglades. Some pet dealers may even intentionally release them into the wild to create a breeding cash crop that they can come and collect later.

Lawmakers have taken steps to stem the problem--Florida banned the sale of Burmese pythons in 2008 and the federal government stopped all imports into the country in 201--but efforts were too little, too late.

Pythons are survivors--they can live up to 25 years in fresh or salt water, go months without eating, and females can lay up to 100 eggs at a time. Living near the top of the food chain, their numbers have swelled into the thousands in just a few years, putting the ecosystem's natural balance at risk.

They're also elusive, and even if you spot one, catching it is another matter entirely.

Chopping off the python's head can lead to a bloodied severed head bearing needle-sharp teeth chomping at your legs. A python brain can remain active for up to an hour after decapitation. Florida officials recommend killing the snake by firing a pressurized bolt into its brain or shooting it in the head with a gun.

Catching the python by hand without a weapon offers a trio of hunters three unappealing choices: Be the sucker who takes on the head and gets a bite on the arm; the sucker who grabs the midsection and ends up with a snake wrapped around your neck; or the sucker in the back who will almost always be covered in urine and feces -- a process known politely as "musking" a predator.

A solo hunter can nab the snake by hand, but the process requires a rope-a-dope game of grabbing the snake by the back of its tail and swinging it around. When the snake rears its head to strike, the hunter drops the tail to dodge. The process is repeated until the snake becomes too exhausted to retaliate. When that finally happens, stuff the snake in a bag, drive it to the nearest drop-off station, and take a shower.

Holbrook bags a 14.5 foot Burmese python in March 2009. (Courtesy of Josh Holbrook)

* * *

They call themselves "herpers."

With more than 40 snake species native in Florida, the state is home to a robust underworld of reptile enthusiasts who devote their weekends and disposable income looking for snakes. Holbrook is the co-founder and vice president of the South Florida Herpetological Society, a group of about 50 local snake lovers who meet monthly at a local exotic pet shop and go on field trips around the state.

Like any niche community, the herpers have their own parlance for the sport of snake catching. The word "herp," for example, can be used several ways. It's a noun ("That place was crawling with herps") or a verb ("Wanna go herpin' tonight?") The Everglades National Park, a popular place for spotting snakes, is almost always called the "ENT" and Holbrook's small sedan is called the "HRV"-- the "Herpetological Research Vehicle." The Burmese pythons are known simply as "Burms."

I meet Holbrook at his house in Lake Worth, where he lives with his wife, two dogs and a small zoo of reptiles. Caged between his guitars and a piano in the family "Herp Room," Holbrook owns no less than seven turtles, one Florida Pine Snake, a Southern Hog Nose Snake and two Boa Constrictors. He has two new snakes living under quarantine in his bedroom closet.

"That's all I've got for wild animals here," Holbrook says, looking around the room. "I think."

Holbrook is preparing for the first Herpetological Society meeting of the year, and tonight he's responsible for providing the raffle prizes. One lucky herper will win a pair of fire belly toads, which Holbrook picks up from his next-door neighbor, a reptile keeper from the Palm Beach Zoo.

Holbrook tosses the toads in a bag and drives down the street to "Wild Cargo Pets." Inside, a volunteer sets up a row of chairs and a projector surrounded by dozens of tanks filled with turtles, snakes, tarantulas and lizards. There's even a Burm coiled in the corner.

Before the meeting, a customer named Brian Jones walks in with a Florida Kingsnake wrapped around his hand and approaches Aaron Joyce, the store owner. "Hey man, can you sex my snake?" Jones asks Joyce. Assuming this does not mean what I thought it meant, I invite myself to follow Joyce and Jones toward his office. Joyce inserts a small metal probe into a slit near the end of the snake and diagnoses it to be male. Snakes lack external sexual organs, Joyce says, so finding the gender isn't as easy as peeking at their underbellies.Brian Jones of West Palm Beach holds his Kingsnake. (Chris Moody/Yahoo News)

It's time for the meeting to begin. Speaking over the sound of a squawking bird, chirping crickets and bubbling aquariums, the club officers proceed through a roster of official business. They announce this year's upcoming "Burm Bash" and crack snide jokes about those "crazy rednecks running around with guns, knives, swords and bats" who signed up for the Python Challenge.

During the meeting, I reunite with Joyce near the back, who is helping a customer with a bag of frozen dead rats.

Joyce tells me he welcomes the Python Challenge. He's frustrated, however, that when it comes to invasive species, lawmakers and the media focus almost exclusively on snakes. Feral cats are bigger threats to wildlife than snakes, he insists, but no one talks about them. (Somehow the movie Kittens on a Plane never made it past pre-production.) Wild pigs are a nuisance too, but there's no Creation story about how Satan took on the form of Babe and tempted Eve with a taste of his Forbidden Bacon.

Making it worse, the restrictions placed on snake ownership cost his small business thousands of dollars in revenue. To him, snake ownership should be regulated, not banned. It is a right. "If they can take away your right to own a snake," Joyce says, "they can take your Bible and your guns next."

* * *

Meeting concluded, the group decides to take the after-party at club member Fred Grunwald's house.

Grunwald is one of the oldest herpers in the group, and he has the collection to prove it. His property is teeming with wildlife--instead of cars in his garage, he has a 16-foot Tiger Boa and countless other snakes. Those seeking a Bud Light in the cooler in the driveway will be dismayed to find a Water Moccasin who has been living in there contentedly for 25 years. In the backyard, tortoises roam the grass next to caged enclosures filled with crocodiles and hissing alligators. Get too close, and the oldest crocodile makes it a habit of snapping at the chain link fence that separates the beast from her potential dinner.

At the Grunwald home, it is not uncommon on cold days for the family to bring some of the wildlife indoors. The smaller crocodiles, for instance, very much enjoy splashing around in the family bathtub. Fred's 16-year-old granddaughter, Brooke, spent her childhood sharing bathrooms with crocodiles, a practice that left her wondering as a child why the other girls in town were apprehensive about coming to her slumber parties. Speaking of sleepovers, Brooke tells me that on one particularly cold night years ago, one of their Caiman crocs found its way into Fred's bed, where they "cuddled" comfortably through the night.

After a thorough tour of the grounds, Fred bids us adieu from his snake sanctuary. Before leaving, I ask how long he's kept giant reptiles for a living.

"For a living?" he asks. "This is just my hobby."

This man, who has slept with crocodiles, breeds giant alligators and keeps rare exotic pets in his garage, is no biologist or zoo keeper.

"I work at a grocery store."

* * *

Josh Holbrook searches for snakes in Everglades National Park. (Chris Moody/Yahoo News)

The next morning Holbrook, Thullbery and Hannah hit the road for the day-long python hunt in the Everglades. The herpers scan the waterway as they drive, searching for signs life. A fleck of light reflecting from the sun; a sparkle in the water; a serpentine shape in the road ahead. They drive on, eyes peeled toward the rising sun.

That's when Hannah spotted the giant snake-looking creature on the side of the pond.

After he lept out of the car, Holbrook is blazing the trail through the grass with Thullbery trailing close behind. Halfway toward the bank, Thullbery missteps on the limestone and sinks his leg into the mud, but pulls himself out and presses on. Hannah is long hidden behind the grass by now, and shouts directions over the pond.

"Is it still there?" Holbrook shouts over the wall of grass toward Hannah, the lookout.

"Yes! Keep going around! You're almost there!" she shouts back.

With a new burst of hope, we push our way through.

"No! It's going in the water!" Hannah screams.

We reach an opening just as the last piece of flesh slithers into the pond. The next thing we see make our hearts sink.

That glistening line of dotted green that we had seen from far across the water was no python at all, but the tail of an enormous alligator whose upper body had been hidden beneath the water. The gator swims nearby as though only to taunt.

We retreat back to the Herpetological Research Vehicle, empty handed and our shoes soaked in mud.

In the end, no pythons were to be found that day. Even with experts like Holbrook on the hunt, most of the 99,000 Burms still slithering their way through the glades can rest easy. For now.

Burmese python tags in Everglades National Park. (Chris Moody/Yahoo News)

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