Associated Press
More than 3,600 Burmese pythons have been captured in Florida under an effort to control the invasive species that wildlife officials say is choking the delicate Everglades ecosystem.
Gov. Ron DeSantis said Monday the Python Action Team had removed 1,000 pythons from the wild. That’s on top of the 2,600 removed by the state’s python elimination program, which recruits hunters from around the state. Both programs began in 2017.
Last month, a trapper on the action team caught a record-setting python. The 18-foot, 4-inch-long (5.58 meter) female weighed 98 pounds and 10 ounces (45 kilograms). Wildlife officials say it was the largest ever captured at the Big Cypress National Preserve.
Experts say pythons have eliminated 99% of the native Everglades mammals including rabbits, bobcats and foxes, decimating food sources for native panthers and alligators.
One comment
Tom Haggerty
November 4, 2019 at 9:30 pm
I read recently that close to 99% of the mammal population in the Florida Everglades has been decimated by the Burmese python.
The food source for these pythons must be super competitive at this moment. They must be removed from the Everglades.
What if we reintroduce a mammal.. Not sure which one… But certainly one that moves frequently, raccoon, possum, deer and fit it with a radio collar small enough and durable enough to be digested by a Python.
Introduce a significant number of these mammals into a mammal starved environment for the Python and monitor which ones were Python ingested and where they are. Track them down and kill them.
Just a thought.
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