Pet owners who took on more than they could handle
have caused a calamity in the Florida Everglades. The
release of non-native Burmese pythons into America’s
largest wetland has resulted in a breeding, growing
population which challenges the alligator at the top
of the food chain and threatens several endangered
species. And all scientists can do to stop this menace
– which can grow to 20 feet in length and weigh 200
pounds - is develop traps and pray they work.
“We’re taking some knowledge from how the exotic brown
tree snake in Guam has been trapped – rodent within a
cage within a cage,” says Skip Snow, a wildlife
biologist at Everglades National Park. “We’d like to
know if that works here for Burmese pythons. There are
some behavioral things we’re trying to examine through
testing during the next six months to a year.”
Burmese pythons caught in the wild by Snow and his
team will be used as subjects in the testing of trap
design. Traps will need to be portable, lightweight,
and capable of being hauled by airboats or helicopters
which can deliver them to more remote areas of the
park not serviced by roads. An effective trap
“probably has to float so it doesn’t get flooded if
the marsh water changes,” says Snow, admitting there
are a number of pending design issues.
Stephen Secor, an associate professor at the
University of Alabama who studies the Burmese python,
says that “selective trapping” techniques like those
employed by Snow are rarely effective – there is the
possibility that the traps will just attract other
species. “They’ll develop some kind of funnel system
where an animal goes in and can’t get out, kind of
like a big minnow trap,” said Secor. “The success of
that, I think, is going to be pretty small.”
First sighted in the Everglades in the late 1990s, the
Burmese python's population in the park could now be
in the thousands. While more than 350 have been found
since 2002, it is impossible to know how many more
exist given how well the snakes blend in with their
natural environment.
“You could be standing next to one and not even know
it,” says Secor, noting that researchers can pinpoint
the location of a snake fitted with a radio
transmitter and still struggle to see it right in
front of them. “Without the transmitter, they’d never
notice it. The snakes get into the brush, grass, and
literally disappear. You could be out there walking
around and be passing 10 snakes.”
Or you could run over them. Farmers plowing vegetable
fields adjacent to the park killed 51 Burmese pythons
this fall. Last year, 44 were killed by the disking
machines at Frog Pond, a 1500 acre, state-owned tract
which is overseen by the South Florida Water
Management District (SFWMD). “They’re all over our
land,” says Nestor Yglesias, a spokesman for SFWMD,
which has put $150,000 in funding toward programs
aimed at eradicating the python. “These snakes are
obviously an invasive species making their way to the
western suburbs of Dade and Brown County.”
There are signs that the Burmese python is extending
its habitat beyond park boundaries and it could use
the extensive canal system around Miami for further
expansion. While the danger the snakes pose to humans
is “negligible” and they won’t be sitting at your
doorstep anytime soon, Davidson College herpetologist
Michael Dorcas acknowledges there are snakes outside
the park. "One guy that lives close to the park had a
snake eat one of his chickens," says Dorcas. "They’re
usually not going to be found around neighborhoods,
but conceivably can travel up canals.”
Researchers are learning more about how the snakes
travel by implanting pinkie-sized radio transmitters
in them and setting them loose in the Everglades. The
hope is that these ‘Judas’ snakes can help locate more
pythons during breeding season and lead to their
capture. Four radio-tagged pythons, released in
December 2005, led researchers to 12 untagged pythons,
which were promptly removed from the park. The Radio
Telemetry Feasibility Project is useful in
locating snake clusters and also demonstrates unique
behaviors. For example, translocated snakes can find
their way home.
“Once breeding season wound down and the rainy season
started, they took off and biologically found their
way to where they were originally captured,” said
Snow, noting that pythons could travel 30-40
kilometers and span more than a kilometer in a 24 hour
time period. “All of this was water mediated too. It’s
quite astonishing how effective a 15 foot snake can
be, and stealthy moving through water and vegetation.
You won’t even know it’s there – no ripples.”
Such stealth perhaps explains how the python can
consume anything and everything. In 2005, Snow
discovered a 13-foot Burmese python that had burst
after attempting to eat a six-foot alligator. More
commonly, pythons feast on rodents, rabbits, raccoons,
bobcats and wading birds. Several federally endangered
species or species of special concern in Florida –
including the Key Largo wood rat, white ibis and wood
stork – are threatened by the Burmese python’s
emergence.
“The Key Largo wood rat is one of the main concerns
now that we’ve found (pythons) on Key Largo,” says
Dorcas. “The estimate is that only 200 of them are
left. And the first python found there this summer had
two wood rats in it. Apparently 198 are left now.”
This ecological disaster was prompted by pet owners
dumping their pythons in the wild. Typically 18 to 24
inches at birth, Burmese pythons can grow to nine feet
within a few years. At that stage, pet owners have
second thoughts about keeping them.
“Most people who make impulse buys don't know what
they're getting into and they're not willing to make
that commitment when it's 10 feet long and you have to
feed it rabbits,” says Snow.
While state outreach and education efforts attempt to
discourage people from taking on exotic pets that they
will be unable to manage, the release of more Burmese
pythons into the wild would hardly matter at this
point, says Dorcas.
“It probably started with just a few snakes,” says
Dorcas. “Now when we’re talking about thousands of
snakes, the impact of controlling pet release would
not be that great. There’s now a healthy wild
population of Burmese pythons.”
have caused a calamity in the Florida Everglades. The
release of non-native Burmese pythons into America’s
largest wetland has resulted in a breeding, growing
population which challenges the alligator at the top
of the food chain and threatens several endangered
species. And all scientists can do to stop this menace
– which can grow to 20 feet in length and weigh 200
pounds - is develop traps and pray they work.
“We’re taking some knowledge from how the exotic brown
tree snake in Guam has been trapped – rodent within a
cage within a cage,” says Skip Snow, a wildlife
biologist at Everglades National Park. “We’d like to
know if that works here for Burmese pythons. There are
some behavioral things we’re trying to examine through
testing during the next six months to a year.”
Burmese pythons caught in the wild by Snow and his
team will be used as subjects in the testing of trap
design. Traps will need to be portable, lightweight,
and capable of being hauled by airboats or helicopters
which can deliver them to more remote areas of the
park not serviced by roads. An effective trap
“probably has to float so it doesn’t get flooded if
the marsh water changes,” says Snow, admitting there
are a number of pending design issues.
Stephen Secor, an associate professor at the
University of Alabama who studies the Burmese python,
says that “selective trapping” techniques like those
employed by Snow are rarely effective – there is the
possibility that the traps will just attract other
species. “They’ll develop some kind of funnel system
where an animal goes in and can’t get out, kind of
like a big minnow trap,” said Secor. “The success of
that, I think, is going to be pretty small.”
First sighted in the Everglades in the late 1990s, the
Burmese python's population in the park could now be
in the thousands. While more than 350 have been found
since 2002, it is impossible to know how many more
exist given how well the snakes blend in with their
natural environment.
“You could be standing next to one and not even know
it,” says Secor, noting that researchers can pinpoint
the location of a snake fitted with a radio
transmitter and still struggle to see it right in
front of them. “Without the transmitter, they’d never
notice it. The snakes get into the brush, grass, and
literally disappear. You could be out there walking
around and be passing 10 snakes.”
Or you could run over them. Farmers plowing vegetable
fields adjacent to the park killed 51 Burmese pythons
this fall. Last year, 44 were killed by the disking
machines at Frog Pond, a 1500 acre, state-owned tract
which is overseen by the South Florida Water
Management District (SFWMD). “They’re all over our
land,” says Nestor Yglesias, a spokesman for SFWMD,
which has put $150,000 in funding toward programs
aimed at eradicating the python. “These snakes are
obviously an invasive species making their way to the
western suburbs of Dade and Brown County.”
There are signs that the Burmese python is extending
its habitat beyond park boundaries and it could use
the extensive canal system around Miami for further
expansion. While the danger the snakes pose to humans
is “negligible” and they won’t be sitting at your
doorstep anytime soon, Davidson College herpetologist
Michael Dorcas acknowledges there are snakes outside
the park. "One guy that lives close to the park had a
snake eat one of his chickens," says Dorcas. "They’re
usually not going to be found around neighborhoods,
but conceivably can travel up canals.”
Researchers are learning more about how the snakes
travel by implanting pinkie-sized radio transmitters
in them and setting them loose in the Everglades. The
hope is that these ‘Judas’ snakes can help locate more
pythons during breeding season and lead to their
capture. Four radio-tagged pythons, released in
December 2005, led researchers to 12 untagged pythons,
which were promptly removed from the park. The Radio
Telemetry Feasibility Project is useful in
locating snake clusters and also demonstrates unique
behaviors. For example, translocated snakes can find
their way home.
“Once breeding season wound down and the rainy season
started, they took off and biologically found their
way to where they were originally captured,” said
Snow, noting that pythons could travel 30-40
kilometers and span more than a kilometer in a 24 hour
time period. “All of this was water mediated too. It’s
quite astonishing how effective a 15 foot snake can
be, and stealthy moving through water and vegetation.
You won’t even know it’s there – no ripples.”
Such stealth perhaps explains how the python can
consume anything and everything. In 2005, Snow
discovered a 13-foot Burmese python that had burst
after attempting to eat a six-foot alligator. More
commonly, pythons feast on rodents, rabbits, raccoons,
bobcats and wading birds. Several federally endangered
species or species of special concern in Florida –
including the Key Largo wood rat, white ibis and wood
stork – are threatened by the Burmese python’s
emergence.
“The Key Largo wood rat is one of the main concerns
now that we’ve found (pythons) on Key Largo,” says
Dorcas. “The estimate is that only 200 of them are
left. And the first python found there this summer had
two wood rats in it. Apparently 198 are left now.”
This ecological disaster was prompted by pet owners
dumping their pythons in the wild. Typically 18 to 24
inches at birth, Burmese pythons can grow to nine feet
within a few years. At that stage, pet owners have
second thoughts about keeping them.
“Most people who make impulse buys don't know what
they're getting into and they're not willing to make
that commitment when it's 10 feet long and you have to
feed it rabbits,” says Snow.
While state outreach and education efforts attempt to
discourage people from taking on exotic pets that they
will be unable to manage, the release of more Burmese
pythons into the wild would hardly matter at this
point, says Dorcas.
“It probably started with just a few snakes,” says
Dorcas. “Now when we’re talking about thousands of
snakes, the impact of controlling pet release would
not be that great. There’s now a healthy wild
population of Burmese pythons.”
2 comments:
Cool story! Where did you get this idea?
I'm travelling in the wake of the news with this one, unfortunately. There's been a lot written about the Burmese python the last few years -- particularly since that gruesome discovery in 2005 (the 13 foot python which tried to eat the 6 foot long alligator). The new elements in this story: developments in snake trapping and the possibility that the snakes could use the canal system to expand well beyond park boundaries. But even that stuff strikes me as a wee bit derivative (already covered by the press).
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