It’s estimated there are already hundreds of thousands of pythons, anacondas and boa constrictors breeding in the Florida Everglades. (Photo Courtesy of US Fish and Wildlife Service)
The Fish and Wildlife Service wants to stop people from bringing giant snakes into the country. Rebecca Williams reports pythons, anacondas and boa constrictors are getting a little too comfortable in the U-S:
Transcript
The Fish and Wildlife Service wants to stop people from bringing giant snakes into the country. Rebecca Williams reports pythons, anacondas and boa constrictors are getting a little too comfortable in the U-S:
It’s estimated there are already hundreds of thousands of pythons, anacondas and boa constrictors breeding in the Florida Everglades.
Ken Warren is with the Fish and Wildlife Service. He says some of the snakes can get up to 20 feet long and 300 pounds. People buy them in pet stores and some release the snakes when they get too big.
It’s become a noticeable problem in the last 15 or 20 years. But the Fish and Wildlife Service is only now starting the process to ban the importation of these snakes.
“It takes a while before you realize the threat. As soon as the threat became pronounced and identified we started to look at the various actions we could take to help get it under control.”
He says it’s getting to be a bigger problem because the snakes are eating endangered species.
JD Willson holding a juvenile python. (Photo by Samara Freemark)
Python enclosure at the Savannah River site, near Aiken, SC. (Photo by Samara Freemark)
Rick Bower, a student volunteer from Davidson College, tracking the pythons in the enclosure. (Photo by Samara Freemark)
Foreign animals that get released
in the wild usually don’t spark that
much interest. But when that species
is a giant snake, well, most people
sit up and take notice. That’s the
problem facing the state of Florida,
where Burmese pythons have moved in
to Everglades National Park. Now,
scientists are trying to figure out
if the snakes could spread to the
rest of the country. Samara Freemark reports:
Transcript
Foreign animals that get released
in the wild usually don’t spark that
much interest. But when that species
is a giant snake, well, most people
sit up and take notice. That’s the
problem facing the state of Florida,
where Burmese pythons have moved in
to Everglades National Park. Now,
scientists are trying to figure out
if the snakes could spread to the
rest of the country. Samara Freemark reports:
Meet South Florida’s newest invasive species – the 20 ft long, 200 lb,
Burmese python.
“They’re impressive animals. They’re really impressive animals. And
they’re breeding
like crazy out there.”
That’s python researcher JD Willson. He says the pythons probably started
off as pets –
until their owners got bored of them and dumped them in the Everglades. Now
those pets
have procreated their way into a huge wild population.
“Certainly thousands. Certainly tens of thousands. Some people have gone
as far as to
say hundreds of thousands.”
Willson says most pythons won’t attack humans. But they do pose a big
threat to local
ecosystems.
“These are snakes that are top predators. They eat alligators, they got a
bobcat record, a
couple of white tail deer. These are a predator that native wildlife are
just not prepared to
deal with. They’re not used to having a giant snake around.”
Florida lawmakers are considering putting a bounty on the pythons – paying
hunters to
kill them. And people in neighboring states just have their fingers crossed
that the
pythons won’t spread north.
But no one really knows enough about the snakes to come up with a good
control plan.
Willson and some other researchers are trying to change that.
“This is the python enclosure.”
They’ve built a little artificial habitat in South Carolina, surrounded
it with a really tall
wall, and filled it with 10 pythons. The researchers want to learn more
about how the
snakes behave in the wild, and see if they can make it through a winter
with freezing
temperatures.
(sound of door opening)
The snakes are tagged with radio transmitters, so the scientists can track
them and record
data on how they’re doing.
Freemark: “It’s safe to be in here?”
Bower: “Oh yeah, they’re not aggressive.”
Inside a student volunteer, Rick Bower, is tracking the snakes with a radio
receiver.
“As you sweep it across, you can see how the signal strength changes and
you get an idea
of where the strongest signal is coming from.”
The receiver tells us we’re basically standing right on top of one of the
pythons.
“Yeah, he’s right at our feet. Yeah, he’s down there.”
But we don’t see anything, even when Willson starts jabbing a stick at
the source of the
beeping.
“Somewhere within an 8 foot radius of where we are, there’s an 11 foot
snake. And he’s
hiding in this aquatic vegetation. And not only can we not see him, but
poking in the
vegetation doesn’t seem to be eliciting too much of a reaction.”
He’s a really sneaky snake.
Whit Gibbons is also working with the crew. He says that if the scientists
have so much
trouble tracking down their pythons, in an enclosed cage, using radio
transmitters –
there’s no way bounty hunters could make even a dent in the Everglades
python
population.
“So they find a hundred, so what. There’s a hundred thousand left. No
one’s going to find
100,000. I mean, we’ve got ‘em in a small enclosure, 10 big snakes,
over 75 feet of snake
if you add them up. And you can’t find them.”
Instead, Gibbons says people could opt for a harm reduction strategy- focus
on limiting
the spread of the snakes, try to protect species they threaten.
“One position is, ‘okay, they’re here, here’s what they can do to
us, or to our pets, or to
the wildlife. Let’s learn to live with them.’”
The South Carolina python study ends next summer. JD Willson says he’s
not sure what
they’ll do with the snakes afterwards. But he does know one thing –
they’re not going to
release them back into the wild.
Environmental scientist Rachael Pierce and her team travel on airboats into the marshes around Lake Okeechobee. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)
Rachael Pierce has to shuffle her feet when she checks her snail traps... just to be sure she doesn’t surprise any alligators. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)
Pierce measuring an apple snail. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)
We’ve spent billions of dollars
just trying to partially restore
the Everglades in Florida. Now,
there’s a struggle to save a bird
there that’s close to extinction.
It’s a raptor called the snail kite.
It’s becoming one of the symbols
for saving the Everglades. Rebecca
Williams has more:
Transcript
We’ve spent billions of dollars
just trying to partially restore
the Everglades in Florida. Now,
there’s a struggle to save a bird
there that’s close to extinction.
It’s a raptor called the snail kite.
It’s becoming one of the symbols
for saving the Everglades. Rebecca
Williams has more:
The snail kite eats pretty much only one thing – a snail called the apple snail.
The apple snail’s been disappearing – partly because of people messing with water levels in the Everglades for farming and cities.
Scientist Rachael Pierce and her team have raised apple snails in the lab and let them go in a marsh at the edge of Lake Okeechobee. Now they need them to stick around and have babies.
“It’s unlikely the snail kites will come back here to this marsh because we haven’t released that many snails. But in the future when we scale this up we do hope to start seeing snail kites.”
The survival of the snail kite depends on this working. And, some people say, if the snail kite goes extinct, things won’t look good for the restoration of the Everglades.
Rebecca Galligan with her dogs Roscoe and Sable in their new panther-proof pet house. Galligan and her
husband lost their dog Riley to a panther, so they had this enclosure built to keep their pets safe. (Photo
by Rebecca Williams)
A young panther photographed using an underpass by an infrared motion camera. Young students purchase the cameras through the "Pennies for Panthers" project in their classrooms. (Photo courtesy of Florida Gulf Coast University, "Wings of Hope" Florida Panther Posse program)
An adult male panther using the underpass to walk underneath a highway. Young students purchase the cameras through the "Pennies for Panthers" project in their classrooms. (Photo courtesy of Florida Gulf Coast University, "Wings of Hope" Florida Panther Posse program)
Recent evidence that panthers use the special underpasses beneath highways in Florida. A lot of other
animals use them too, including alligators. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)
Biologist Mark Lotz points out some more tracks. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)
A well-worn path near an underpass in the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)
People are killing Florida panthers.
Usually it’s not intentional. But
Rebecca Williams reports biologists
are trying to figure out how to keep
panthers and people from running into
each other:
Transcript
People are killing Florida panthers.
Usually it’s not intentional. But
Rebecca Williams reports biologists
are trying to figure out how to keep
panthers and people from running into
each other:
There are only about 100 Florida panthers left in the wild. They’re endangered.
If you live down here, it’s one thing to know there are panthers hunting for food in the Everglades. But it’s something else when they visit your backyard.
(sound of tropical birds singing)
Rebecca Galligan and her husband didn’t give panthers all that much thought. Until one day, when they came home from work, and found their dog Riley had been killed.
“The scratches on the body and the way he’d been killed it was pretty obvious it was some sort of wild cat.”
Two days earlier something had killed their neighbor’s sheep. Then a dozen goats got killed.
A biologist decided the predator was a panther. In the past few years in South Florida, more people have been losing pets and farm animals to hungry panthers.
Galligan calling to dog: “C’mere, have a seat!” (Roscoe sniffs the microphone)
Now, when she’s away, Rebecca Galligan keeps her dogs Roscoe and Sable in a little panther-proof house. It’s made out of steel and chain link fencing.
“There’s so much nature and wildlife, and so I mean, we just can’t destroy it all because we want to be safe. That’s why we had this pen built, so we can keep the animals a little safer from the animals that live around us.”
And a lot of people here think the panthers have a right to stick around.
But some say there’s a gaping hole in the law that’s supposed to protect panthers.
The panther has never had what’s called critical habitat set aside. That means developers don’t have to consider the land panthers need to survive. Panther habitat or not, they can just build.
So panthers are getting crowded out by subdivisions and huge new cities.
Andrew McElwaine is president of the Conservancy of Southwest Florida. He’s asked the Obama Administration to officially give panthers that habitat.
“So, the more habitat we take away, we’re forcing panthers to move out. We’re getting reports of panthers in urban areas of Southwest Florida looking for somewhere to live, if you will.”
And, as people move in, panthers are becoming roadkill.
Last year 10 panthers were killed by cars. So far, this year, six more panthers have been killed.
(sound of cars whizzing by)
“There are some panther tracks here. There’s one there… and there…”
Mark Lotz is a panther biologist. We’re hanging out in an underpass below the highway. It was built for panthers. Miles of fences run along the highway and make a funnel, so panthers have to go below the road.
Lotz says there are 36 panther underpasses on this stretch of highway. And he says fewer panthers get hit here. But underpasses are expensive – about $2 million each. And giving panthers room to live isn’t always even that simple.
Lotz says the biggest challenge is getting people to adapt to panthers. To him, the cats are majestic. But he also knows a lot of people think they’re terrifying. Somebody actually shot a panther a few months ago.
“Naysayers could make the argument there’s no panthers in Pennsylvania or any other eastern state and things are going just fine. But then I would counter – look what’s happening with deer populations there. You know, panthers are part of the ecosystem. Without them there’s just something missing. In a way part of the wildness disappears.”
But if panthers keep running out of space, they could disappear.
We talked to the Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar. And we asked him whether he’d set aside critical habitat for panthers.
“Yeah, we’ll have to get back to you on that.”
That’s been the kind of response he’s given to other reporters too.
Giving panthers habitat protection would mean more obstacles for developers. And, in this economy, that could be pretty unpopular.
Large Burmese pythons are now regularly encountered along trails and visitor areas in the park (Photo courtesy of the National Park Service)
A python native to Asia is popping up in one national park. Kyle Norris reports:
Transcript
A python native to Asia is popping up in one national park. Kyle Norris reports:
The Burmese Python is showing up in Everglades National Park in Florida.
That’s because people who no longer want their pet pythons are releasing them there.
Now these babies are big — usually they between 6 to 12 feet long. And there could be as many as 150,000 pythons in the Everglades.
The snakes are not so much a threat to humans. But they are a threat to animals – especially to endangered ones.
Scott Hardin is an exotic species coordinator. He’s with the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission.
“You just got a great big snake, nothing like it, nothing analogous in the native snake fauna in Florida. So it opens up a whole new range of prey that was not susceptible before.”
He says officials are brainstorming ways to deal with the problem.
They’re trying to rig up some really big traps. And they’ve also thrown out the idea of a bounty — basically a cash reward for catching the snakes.
Ellen Peterson has lived in Florida for many years and this is the first year her well went dry. (Photo by Arthur Cooper)
A much needed storm rolling in over Lake Okeechobee. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)
Droughts are nothing new for the Western US.
But lately, even some parts of the country
surrounded by water have gotten a taste of
droughts. Rebecca Williams reports as our
population grows, some experts say we’re going
to have to learn to live with less water:
Transcript
Droughts are nothing new for the Western US.
But lately, even some parts of the country
surrounded by water have gotten a taste of
droughts. Rebecca Williams reports as our
population grows, some experts say we’re going
to have to learn to live with less water:
(sound of birds)
Even in swampy, muggy Florida, people have been running out of water.
“This is the first time the well has ever gone dry.”
Ellen Peterson remembers water gushing out of her artesian well when she’d hook up the hose. These days she’s stuck with rusty water from her shallow well.
(sound of faucet turning on)
“Now if I let that sit it would settle out orange.”
We visited Peterson at the tail end of this year’s dry season. In the weeks since then, Florida’s been pummeled by major thunderstorms. But Florida water managers say it’s too early to know how much the rain will help.
This was the driest dry season Florida’s felt in more than 75 years. And it’s the third year in a row of serious drought. That’s meant some changes for people who live here.
Many cities put rules in place that limit watering lawns to one or two days a week. One woman actually ended up with a warrant out for her arrest after she watered her lawn on the wrong day and didn’t pay the fine.
Some cities in Florida are talking about adding a drought surcharge to bills for people using the most water.
Ellen Peterson says local water managers have even been capping wells in her area. Peterson may be 85 years old, but that didn’t stop her from telling her local official to back off.
“They told me they were going to cap my well and I threatened the guy with his life if he ever came back. (laughs) It hasn’t happened yet.”
So it’s not such an easy sell to get people to cut back on water.
(sound at a lake)
But that’s Gary Ritter’s job. He’s a water manager in the Lake Okeechobee area. It’s a giant lake – 35 miles wide – and it’s nicknamed the liquid heart of the Everglades. The lake level is 2.5 feet below average.
“For water to get to the Everglades it has to come from Lake Okeechobee. Now we have a juggling act as to how we manage this water in the system you know for multiple users for the water supply and for the ecosystem.”
The lake’s the center of a huge tug of war. Farmers and cities need the water, and the lake’s also a big tourist draw. And the Everglades are in major trouble – mostly because the water flow to this fragile area has been cut off by people.
Some experts say these kinds of conflicts are just going to get worse.
Peter Gleick is president of the Pacific Institute. It’s a nonpartisan group that studies water issues.
“Places we didn’t think were vulnerable to water shortages in the past are now increasingly vulnerable. As our population continues to grow and our water supply doesn’t. As more and more people try to share that fixed resource there’s going to be growing competition for water and more natural and manmade drought.”
And he says we just don’t know what’s in store for us as the climate changes because of global warming. We could get a one-two punch.
First, from weird new weather patterns. And second, from more and more people moving into dry areas.
People have expected these kinds of problems for cities in the desert Southwest. But nobody really saw this coming in the Southeast.
Peter Gleick says even if you live in a place surrounded by water now, you shouldn’t expect to always have plenty of it.
The state
proposes returning some of the land to its natural marshy state, and using other parts for stormwater
reservoirs. (Photo courtesy of the National Parks Service)
The state of Florida is working on a plan to restore water flow to its troubled Everglades. It wants to
buy a huge sugar grower and the land it owns between Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades. Ann
Dornfeld went out on the lake to find out what’s at stake:
Transcript
The state of Florida is working on a plan to restore water flow to its troubled Everglades. It wants to
buy a huge sugar grower and the land it owns between Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades. Ann
Dornfeld went out on the lake to find out what’s at stake:
The first thing to know about Lake Okeechobee is that it’s not your stereotypical clear blue lake. It’s
shallow, murky, covered with tall grasses, and thick with everything from birds and rabbits to frogs
and alligators.
The lake is about 35 miles wide. It’s known as the ‘liquid heart’ of the Everglades. And Paul Gray is
here to take its pulse.
Paul Gray: “I think it’s a glossy!”
Ann Dornfeld: “What’s that?”
Paul Gray: “A glossy ibis.”
Gray gets excited about birds. That makes sense – he’s the Science Coordinator for the Audubon
Society’s Lake Okeechobee Watershed Program.
It’s his first time out on the lake since the last big storm, and he’s eager to see how it’s doing.
Stormwater is diverted into the lake from development and farmland like the U.S. Sugar fields. That
floods the lake, which has nowhere to drain because it’s surrounded by a dike.
The best way to get to the middle of a marshy lake is an airboat.
(sound of airboat starting up)
As the boat zips across the grassy lake on a cushion of air, brightly-colored bugs and tiny green frogs
the size of your thumbnail land inside.
Once we skid to a halt, Paul Gray scans the water, and throws up his hands, disappointed.
“We’ve stopped in an area that’s probably four feet deep now. This is very, very sparse – just a little
stem sticking up every four to five feet. If everything was working right this would be all vegetated,
full of birds and stuff. Right now I’m not sure what will happen to it. [sighs] It’s a little demoralizing
right here, but we’ll look for some better spots.”
All this vegetation drowned in the last big storm.
“All of Okeechobee’s water used to flow into the Everglades, but now it doesn’t do that anymore.”
Instead, extra water is dumped into the fragile estuaries. They’re supposed to be a delicate mix of
saltwater and freshwater. And dumping all that lake water into them destroys the ecosystem.
“And the great tragedy is in 2004-2005 we had so many storms, and we dumped so much water
from Lake Okeechobee that we could’ve met all our water needs for a decade. The year after dumping
all that water out, we were in a severe drought and the farmers were only getting 45% of the water
they wanted.”
Last summer, the state of Florida announced a tentative deal with U.S. Sugar Corporation to buy the
company out. U.S. Sugar’s land blocks the flowaway between the lake and the Everglades. The state
proposes returning some of the land to its natural marshy state, and using other parts for stormwater
reservoirs. Gray says the U.S. Sugar deal would be a huge boon to the lake and the Everglades. It
could even improve the birdlife in northern states and Canada that fly south for winter.
“When those little warblers and things reach Florida, they’ve gotta get fat. They need to double their
body weight before they fly across the Gulf of Mexico, or they can’t make it!”
We arrive at a shallower part of the lake, and Gray pumps his fist in victory.
“This is much better news. We’re sitting in a big patch of green plants with little white and pink
flowers. It goes on for several hundred yards. This is called smart weed. It produces little very hard
black seeds. And ducks love these seeds, and migratory seed-eating birds like sparrows and other
things love these seeds. When all of the wintering waterfowl get down here they’re gonna have a ball
with this! [laughs] Wow. That’s nice. Alright, we can go.”
It’s a small success. But Gray says until the flow of water into Lake Okeechobee is returned to normal,
the liquid heart of the Everglades will be struggling to beat.
Illinois Congressman Mark Kirk, Ohio Governor Bob Taft, EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson, and Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. This was right taken after they signed the agreement. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
In the spring of 2004, President Bush created a task force to develop a comprehensive Great Lakes restoration plan. The group recently released its final recommendations. But members already disagree about the future of their proposal. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee reports:
Transcript
In April 2004, President George Bush created a task force to develop a
comprehensive Great Lakes restoration plan. The group recently
released its recommendations, but members already disagree about the
future of their proposal. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn
Allee reports:
Efforts to improve the Great Lakes face a major hurdle. Local, state and
federal programs overlap and sometimes duplicate one another. That
wastes a lot of time and money. President Bush wanted to change this. So, he
created a task force called the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration. For the
first time, cities, states, federal agencies, and Indian tribes would agree to
specific goals and how to reach them. By most accounts they succeeded.
Here’s Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley.
“I can’t overstate what a major step forward this is for the Great Lakes.
For the first time, we’re all the same page with a common vision.”
The parties agreed to eight major goals. Among other things, they want
to restore wetlands along Great Lakes shorelines, they want to clean up
heavy metals that pollute lakebeds, and they want to keep sewage away
from public beaches. The cost for all this would stand at billions of
dollars, and that price tag caused a major rift.
Bush administration officials agreed to spend 300 million additional
dollars per year. That’s just a fraction of what states and environmental
groups hoped for.
Derek Stack is with Great Lakes United, an advocacy group. He says
states want to participate, but sometimes they can’t.
“I think a lot of the states simply don’t have the dollars necessary to pull
it off.”
Tribes, cities and states are being careful with their criticism. They want
to keep the door open for the administration to change its mind.
“To be fair to the federal administration, the states are saying we don’t
have federal money, and the feds are pointing out that we don’t exactly
have state money either, but the states have committed themselves to the
plan. So, now that they know what they’ve committed themselves to, the
budget building can begin. It’s hard to build a budget if you don’t have a
plan.”
Some critics are more strident, though. Illinois Congressman Rahm
Emmanuel says the administration needs this clear message. Federal
leadership requires federal money.
“There’s either action or inaction. This is the ninth report in five years,
and I hope it’s the last report. Now, there’s nothing that can’t be cured when
it comes to the Great Lakes that resources can’t take care of.”
Great Lakes advocates and state governments will be watching the next
few months closely.
Cameron Davis directs the Alliance for the Great Lakes. He says he’s
reserving judgment until the President releases a budget proposal.
“That budget will be released the first week of February, and if it has 300
million dollars in new funding, then we’ll know that the administration’s
serious. If it doesn’t we need to ask Congress to step in.”
Some legislators say that deadline might be too soon to judge the
ultimate success of the restoration plan.
Illinois Congressman Mark Kirk says other federal cleanup efforts came
after several reports and years of waiting. Congressman Kirk says the
prospects for the restoration plan are good. The Great Lakes region has
the strength of eight states standing behind it.
“When you look at the success of the Chesapeake Bay, and then the success
of protecting the Everglades, you see, once you come together with a
common vision, what a unified part of state delegation or in the case of
Florida, what an entire state delegation can do.”
On the other hand, it might be hard to keep eight state governments
focused on a common purpose.
There’s another wrinkle in the restoration plan as well. Canada lies on the other
side of the Great Lakes, and any comprehensive plan will require its
cooperation as well.
Some members of Congress feel the timing is right for the long-anticipated federal legislation to help restore the Great Lakes. A bill introduced in the Senate recently proposes EPA monitoring of Great Lakes water quality. Now, a bill being introduced in the House proposes a four billion dollar Great Lakes Restoration Fund. And it has strong political support. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Joyce Kryszak reports:
Transcript
Some members of Congress feel the timing is right for the long-anticipated
federal legislation to help restore the Great Lakes. A bill introduced in the
Senate recently proposes EPA monitoring of the Great Lakes water quality.
Now, a bill being introduced in the House proposes a four billion dollar
Great Lakes Restoration Fund. And it has strong political support.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Joyce Kryszak reports:
A critical report by the General Accounting Office prompted
Congress to start a coordinated recovery plan. The bipartisan
bill on the Senate side would pay for more reliable monitoring of
water quality. And the House bill now being introduced – also bipartisan –
would supply four billion dollars to help restore the environmental health of the lakes.
The Great Lakes Trust Fund is modeled after a multi-billion dollar
federal plan to rehabilitate Florida’s Everglades. Congressman Thomas Reynolds of New York
is one of the bill’s co-sponsors.
“We’ve seen, from increased levels of toxins and bacteria that are
killing wildlife and closing beaches, to invasive species that are
attacking an ecosystem. The Great Lakes need more than help – they need funding.”
Reynolds says he believes the backing is there to pass the legislation –
and that federal help is long overdue.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Joyce Kryszak.
It’s estimated there are already hundreds of thousands of pythons, anacondas and boa constrictors breeding in the Florida Everglades. (Photo Courtesy of US Fish and Wildlife Service)
