JD Willson holding a juvenile python. (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.
For The Environment Report, I’m Samara Freemark.