Florida counties are suggesting something that sounds like a scarlet letter to warn innocents away from households with scary serpents.

It’s the latest twist in the tale of the python-induced paranoia that’s wound up with bounty hunters seeking the critters in throughout Palm Beach County on lands abutting the Everglades.

The July 1 death of a two-year-old girl who was strangled by a pet python in Central Florida set off demands for an open-season on the snakes, which have overrun the national park. Gov. Charlie Crist gladly complied and ordered the bounty hunt for the pests last week. (U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, a Democrat, has had the Burmese python infestation in his sights for some time).

Now, the Florida Association of Counties wants state wildlife officials to give them more control over dangerous animals. The association sent a letter to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission last week asking them to let counties notify neighbors where perilous pythons and other classified creatures reside.

Perhaps the counties have something like the sex offender registry on the Internet where neighbors can see where perpetrators live.

Will the pythons be forced to take up residence under bridges like sex offenders banned from living near schools, parks or other places where children congregate?

A python posse armed with clubs and machetes will start combing the Everglades for the supersized serpents this weekend.

Gov. Charlie Crist ordered the python bounty hunt Wednesday at the urging of two Florida congressmen who were in an uproar after one of the exotic snakes strangled a 2-year-old girl July 1 near Ocala.

That python was a pet and didn’t live in the Everglades. But the case called new attention to the plague of the oversized reptiles that have spread throughout South Florida’s marshes, gobbling wading birds and posing a danger to native wildlife.

Estimates of the python population in the Everglades range between 10,000 and 150,000. They can reach up to 20 feet in length and have long, curved teeth, along with the ability to squeeze their prey to death.

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