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.
For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.