You might have heard the story on NPR, or seen it come across the wires or your Google alerts: A North Carolina man was arrested, charged with felony animal cruelty, and held on a $20,000 bond for allegedly shooting his pet python.

It's not at all clear what happened -- initial reports didn't include the shooter's side of the story, and he's now claiming the snake, named "Anonymous," was a beloved pet who was already dead when he shot him. From the Charlotte Observer:

“I couldn’t bury him or the other animals would get him,” Ericcson told NBC Charlotte, the Observer’s news partner. “I had to shoot it to get the gas out of him, then I was going to burn him.”

Ericcson said the snake was his pet for about 17 years. “I’ve had that snake since he was so small he could just wrap around your wrist,” he said. “Me and my wife can’t have kids, so the animals are our kids.”

Ericcson claimed he was so distraught over the snake’s death, he shot up the large cabinet that contained his Dale Earnhardt collection.

Setting aside the made-for-reality-TV elements of the story, the extraneous details, and the conflicting news accounts, focus on just one thing: In North Carolina, the media is uniformally referring to a python as a "pet," and authorities charged someone who allegedly shot a python with felony animal cruelty.

In Florida, they're paying bounty on killed pythons. In North Carolina, they're protected pets. Go figure.

H/T to Alex Scharnberg for the tip.