Florida has a serious snake problem. for years. But just how big this problem has become was recently demonstrated by the appearance of a Burmese python, which broke records in various ways. Biologists captured it in Everglades National Park.
The female python 5.5 meters long, weighed 98 kilograms. “We documented 122 eggs inside this snake,” said biologist Ian Bartoszek of the Southwest Florida Cooperative Invasive Species Management Area (CISMA). “An average clutch has 43 eggs. Imagine it: 122 eggs maturing on the inside,” Bartoszek explained at a news conference.
The Everglades swamps, with their hot and humid climate, provide ideal living conditions for snakes, whose numbers and distribution have skyrocketed in recent years, and they have no natural enemiesapart from humans.
Originally, this invasive snake species is not native to Florida. The Burmese python (Python bivittatus) makes its home in several countries in Southeast Asia, from northeastern India to southern China. In the 20th century, the constrictor snake was introduced to the US as a “pet.” Beginning in the 1970s, the first specimens appeared in the Everglades.
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The Burmese python is captured in Florida. Male snakes with tracking devices guide biologists to breeding females.
It is not clear if the first specimens escaped from pet litters or were abandoned by their owners when the animals grew too large to continue keeping them. Additionally, Hurricane Andrew destroyed a snake farm in Florida in 1992, and more than 1,000 animals escaped into the vast swamps of the Everglades. Biologist Bartoszek suspects that the now-found giant python was raised as a pet and released decades ago.
Conservationists hunt female pythons
For almost ten years, CISMA conservationists have been hunting female pythons to interrupt their reproductive cycle. Biologists use male snakes as lures. Males are equipped with a transmitter and guide ecologists through dense undergrowth to approach large, highly reproductive females.
Also the recently discovered giant tiger python was found by means of a tracking device worn by the male, named “Dion”. Once hunted, the giant python was euthanized.
So far, biologists have been able to capture more than 1,000 animals, but given the large number of eggs each individual incubates, this hunt is an extremely difficult struggle.
Capturing large female pythons is a race against time for conservationists.
What was once thought to be a cute pet now represents a major threat to native wildlife in the fragile ecosystem of the Everglades. “These vipers are big game hunters, as you would imagine from their size,” says Bartoszek. “They can take down considerably large prey.”
These types of snakes are not particularly picky when it comes to choosing food. The python infestation has nearly wiped out populations of native mammals like rabbits, opossums, raccoons, and white-tailed deer.
A python captured in December had just eaten an adult whitetail deer: biologists found the deer hooves in the snake’s stomach during autopsy.
The indigenous predators they are also seriously threatened for the pythons. The Florida panther also feeds on rabbits, opossums, and white-tailed deer, making pythons now a serious rival for food.
Source: DW