Posted on 01/25/2017 7:49:51 PM PST by nickcarraway
The tribesmen have removed 13 pythons in just over a week, including a 16-foot-long female
Florida wildlife officials have recruited tribesmen from India in the state's ongoing hunt for Burmese pythons.
Irula tribesmen are well-known in southern India for their snake-catching. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission hopes they'll reveal something that has long eluded researchers: a reliable way to track and spot the tan, splotchy snakes that all but disappear in the Everglades.
One of the commission's exotic species experts, Kristen Sommers, said in a statement Monday that the state hopes the tribesmen can teach people in Florida some of their skills.
The tribesmen have removed 13 pythons in just over a week, including four from the Crocodile Lake National Wildlife Refuge in Key Largo. One of the snakes was a female measuring 16 feet long.
Last year, a state-sanctioned hunt netted 106 pythons in one month.
I don’t think this thread had much to do with real facts. What’s happened to the Everglades is a tragedy and in the long run (if the Everglades is around in the long run) I would expect pythons to fit right in to the ecosystem. As you said, “Life will find a way.”
Greedy bastards are turning the glades into a huge, snobby tract housing horror.
There will be nothing left but a puddle full of fairy shrimp and mosquito larvae, by the time they’re done.
Have you seen the completely insane “global warming projection maps” that claim Burmese Pythons will eventually colonize northern VA?
This psycho crap popped up during Obeyme’s reign of error.
I’m not thinking coincidence.
On the upside, bringing in the Indians is awesome.
Those people live in respectful harmony with huge Cobras and have no irrational fears of snakes.
Cool dudes.
I find it utterly amusing how people that have zero experience with these animals have all the answers.
You are correct that it’s the sugar plantations that are killing off the Everglades, it’s not a snake of any kind. People are so worried about the Burmese pythons and yet, not one single peep about the plethora of venomous species that were released in Hurricane Andrew.
Now, back to the know it all couch commandos. I’m going to be blunt. The Burms are not going away in the Everglades by the hand of man. It is simply not going to happen. Burms are not going to migrate out of Florida. They cannot handle the cooler temperatures. Again... it’s not going to happen.
For the kill them all crowd. You owe your cushy existence to the presence of snakes. Without them, we would not have a society that is this advanced. Most of you would be dead before you’re 30. Give the slithers the respect they deserve. They’re not monsters, they’re beneficial more than you know.
I work with some of the largest species of snakes in the world every single day. All the fear mongering that I see in this thread is pure bunk. Like most of the threads on snakes on FR, I laugh at the bravado of many of you that thump your chest and want to kill these animals. Nature will take care of the Burmese in the Everglades. It’s slowly been happening for years. Humans aren’t going to eliminate the Burms no matter what you might think. But mother nature will.
Stop the hate on these animals. They are being blamed for something that they are not doing. Salamander is correct in that it’s the sugar plantations that are killing the Everglades. Focus on that and address it if you want to save the wildlife there. Or... blame the snake and watch the Everglades die as the sugar growers laugh at how gullible people are.
I wonder how many people are unwittingly taking some life-saving medicine, right now, wholly unaware that without snakes, that medicine would be impossible, rendering them *dead*, for the lack of it?
Yeah.
“Kill ‘em all.”
Disease will sort them out.
The state sanctioned hunt had over 1000 registered participants. So these two hunters by themselves may eclipse the result of that effort. I camp in the Everglades park a lot and the damage these animals have done is noticeable. They are taking deer, alligators and all of the raccoons. I saw one swimming in the north of whitewater bay and should have run him over with the boat but wasn’t sure what he was until I found a picture of one. The difference in the way these two hunt reportedly is that they get down in the high weeds along the banks versus the amateurs technique of trying to find them sunning themselves up on a path on a cold day. Their tribe inIndia allegedly hunted the local pythons to extinction, and I hope they can teach the locals how to do it.
That’s a brutally realistic way of looking at things.
Every week, there’s someone screaming that one thing or another is on the verge of “going extinct”.
What ever happened to “adapt or die”?
Where are the die-hard Darwinists, then?
There’s been a bazillion extinctions throughout history and something else always fills the void.
Barring a massive comet strike, it’ll all work out, one way or the other.
:)
Here’s a charming little article that will no doubt warm the cockles of your heart.
http://www.bagheera.com/inthewild/van_anim_python.htm
They are not responsible for deer [or any other mammal] population decline.
Diverting water for the plantations and housing developments, and ironically “Everglades restoration” is.
Hogs, cats and rats.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_invasive_species_in_the_Everglades#Mammals
Among many other things.
I watched a show on a particular *tree* that was utterly devastating the ecosystem.
It spreads like a rabid weed and they have *no way* to eradicate it.
http://pesticide.ifas.ufl.edu/courses/pdfs/melaleuca/Melaleuca.pdf
And a tree fungus is wiping out the other trees, thereby eliminating habitat and root systems necessary for ecological stability
But people are not ridiculously terrified by trees or fungus.
Blame the evil snakes.
It’s easier than taking responsibility.
Yeah, this looks like a foreign entry antiamerican propaganda program run by government
Thanks for your input, that. clears it up.
I’ve got a resident black snake around my house that occasionally suns on my front porch. Very glad to have him as he helps keep the population of vermin down.
People buy these as ‘pets’, they get too big to handle they turn them loose rather than disposing of them or giving them over to a wildlife park.
S. Fla has been inundated with foreign flora and fauna.
Back in the 80s my neighbor had a 4 ft. iguana in his yard. Drove his little dog crazy.
Fruit eating parrot flocks noisily flying around.
Melaluca trees taking over the Everglades.( They’ve pretty much eradicated at great expense and effort)
Now the scourge is pythons, eating everything in the ‘Glades and Lion Fish eating all the other fish in the ocean.
Agreed! I know they have their place in The Circle of Life. ;)
You do realize that it’s not irresponsible pet owners that caused the Burmese infestation in the Everglades right? Hurricane Andrew destroyed a very poorly built breeding and importation facility in that area years ago... that’s where the Burms, the cobras, the eyelash vipers, the mambas and other snakes came from. You never hear about the venomous ones there... only the big, really scary, wet your pants if you see one, Burmese pythons. Ever ask yourself why that is?
Adult Burmese pythons eat only a few times a year. In winter, they fast as the temperatures will fall low enough where they cannot digest food. Males will go off food in breeding season as well. When you look at how these snakes live and what their husbandry requirements are, all of a sudden, the claim that they’re eating everything in the Everglades is a bit unrealistic. Actually, it’s just flat out BS. To do the damage that is being claimed, you would need more than 50 adult Burmese pythons per acre. I can assure you, that is simply not the case.
Like I’ve said before... blame the snakes and kiss the Everglades good bye. Look at the real problem and fix it before it’s too late.
I was born and raised in Miami. Left in 1984 prior to the python infestation. But I saw plenty of other ‘exotics’ . Had a Melaleuca (aka Paper)tree in my yard. Bufo toads (S. America) in the yard. Iguanas and Cuban lizards, parrots in the neighborhood.
Expecting an infestations of piranhas. There is already a similar fish that looks just like them, sans teeth in pet shops.
A lot of these infestations are loose pets.
And Lion Fish? Their origin is not in question IMO.
I’ll only add the remote possibility of the Panama Canal.
From Wiki.
.............. Miami, in particular, is the hub for trade in exotic pets within the United States. Although the exact origin of Burmese pythons in the Everglades is unknown, it is likely that many were once pets released by owners who found them too difficult to care for.[7]
An evaluation of the genetic structure of Burmese pythons sampled from Everglades National Park determined that the population is genetically distinct from pythons sampled in the native range, but within the Everglades population, there is little genetic diversity.
This finding either indicates that the python population is freely interbreeding or corroborates the hypothesis that the individuals originate from a specific source population such as the pet trade
.[8.............Authors..
Collins, Timothy M., Barbie Freeman, and Skip Snow. “Final Report: Genetic Characterization of Populations of the Nonindigenous Burmese Python in Everglades National Park.” Final Report for the South Florida Water Management District. Department of Biological Sciences, Florida International University, Miami, Florida, 2008.
Black yard snakes are actually non-venomous and good to have around. They don’t co-exit with the venomous kind, so if you have one, it usually means there aren’t venomous ones nearby.
That wiki article is misleading. All the snakes found in the Everglades do have a like genetic background, they all come from the exact same source. The DNA matches the blood draws from the importer that lost their breeding and housing facility in Andrew. To date, no differing genetic mapping of Burms has been found in the Everglades.
This puts the theory of abandoned pets in question. I don’t doubt that there are some abandoned pets there, but making the claim that the infestation of Burmese pythons is directly due to that is false.
I can’t speak of other species of animals as I have not researched the subject matter on them. But as for the snakes... The infestation isn’t due to irresponsible owners releasing their pets.
I will be traveling to the Everglades to help document a lot of information on these snakes in a couple of months.
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