Pythons In Florida & Caribbean Coral

WEDS show: Pythons and Dornfeld Reef



Pythons on the loose...

This is the Environment Report. I’m Rebecca Williams in for Lester Graham.

So you thought you had trouble with the neighbors. Maybe it’s rabbits nibbling on the begonias or deer eating from your vegetable garden. Well in the Florida Everglades, it’s pythons. People have been releasing their pet pythons... and that’s growing into a big problem. Kyle Norris is here - and you’ve been looking into this:

KN: Yeah – these are Burmese pythons and they’re native to Asia. These babies are big – usually between 6 and 12 feet long. Florida officials estimate there are about 150-thousand pythons swimming around in the Everglades now.

RW: Wow. So do these guys eat people?

KN: No, not really. But it’s not good for other animals – especially endangered ones. Scott Hardin works on exotic species issues for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

BITE

He says officials are trying to rig up really big traps to catch the snakes. And they’ve also thrown out the idea of a bounty – basically a cash reward for anyone who catches a python.

And Hardin says if you have a pet you don’t want... don’t toss it into the wild! Call a vet or your local wildlife agency or a pet store.

RW: Ok, thanks Kyle

KN: Sure


STING

This is the Environment Report.

Scientists say nearly half of the coral reefs in the U-S are in bad shape. Many are dead. The situation is similar in much of the world. But not everywhere, as Ann Dornfeld found on the Caribbean island of Bonaire (bone-AIR)

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[waves on shore]

Jerry Ligon is the resident naturalist at Bonaire Dive and Adventure. That's one of the islands many dive shops.

Jerry Ligon: "I can even talk to divers who come to Bonaire and they say, 'What fantastic diving!' and they remember, 'This is how the way it was in Cayman Islands 25 years ago!'" [:12]

Ligon says the Cayman Islands might have even had more impressive reefs than Bonaire's back in the day. But coral throughout the U-S and Caribbean has been in sharp decline for decades.

So how do Bonaire's reefs remain intact?

Ramón de León is the manager of the Bonaire National Marine Park. He says the island has an advantage in that it has no industries to pollute the water. The island is mostly undeveloped, which means relatively little farm and lawn fertilizer run-off that can create marine algae blooms. And cool upwellings in the region help balance the rising ocean temperatures. Warm oceans can cause coral bleaching, which often kills the coral animal.

But de León says Bonaire really owes its healthy reefs to its history of conservation laws. They date back to an era when such policies were rare.

Ramón de León: "Bonaire start to protect sea turtles and turtle nests in 1961, back when everybody was promoting sea turtle soups and nailing shells in the walls." [:12]

By the end of the 1970s, Bonaire had banned spearfishing and made it illegal to damage coral. For years, divers have been required to pay a sizeable fee and take an orientation course before they're allowed to dive on the island. That helps them avoid touching the coral, which can kill it.

For all of Bonaire's success in coral conservation, there are still some problems. De León says its reefs suffer from leaky septic tanks and boat pollution. And there are few of the large predator fish that used to maintain population balance on the reefs.

But the island is a haven for researchers like Mark Patterson. He designs underwater robots at Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences. Last year he led a NOAA expedition to use robots to map Bonaire's reefs. He says the island's reefs are valuable as a baseline by which other reefs can be judged.

Mark Patterson: "So the fact that we've got some pristine reefs left is very important, and we've got to work very hard to protect them because it shows us how the ecosystem should look and used to look around the planet before things started to go downhill." [:16]


You can see some underwater photos Ann took on her trip... on our website environment report dot org.

I’m Rebecca Williams.