The burgeoning 150,000-snake python population in Florida’s Everglades National Park threatens crops, livestock, and native animals. And, as the July 1 story of the toddler killed by a pet python demonstrates, the snakes can also threaten human lives. The snake overpopulation began when python owners discarded their unwanted pets in the wild; now, lawmakers are pushing for legislation to combat this invasive species. Not surprisingly, there is disagreement over the best way to do it.
Florida Senator Bill Nelson, who filed a bill in February to ban the importation of Burmese pythons, told a Senate panel on Wednesday that the snakes are slithering their way into a wider geographical area. Then he explained in graphic detail how a pet python… strangled a toddler in her crib last week in a town northwest of Orlando. ”It’s just a matter of time before one of these snakes gets to a visitor in the Florida Everglades,” Nelson said [Miami Herald]. Nelson said he’s been pestering the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for three years to halt the growth of the snake population, but the agency has not yet taken action. In addition, an environmental scientist at the panel emphasized the need to majorly restructure the policies that regulate and control import of exotic species like the python.
The legislation Nelson proposed would classify pythons as injurious animals, making it illegal to bring the snakes over state lines and, he hopes, preventing people from keeping pythons as pets. Not surprisingly, exotic pet sellers stand opposed to Nelson’s plan, saying it will kill the exotic pet industry. It’s a powerful lobby: An estimated 100 million Americans own some kind of exotic pet, and critics worry a ban would drive more of the trade underground [Christian Science Monitor]. Legislation implemented last year made it more expensive, but not illegal, to own the snakes, due to mandatory $100 yearly permits and tracking chips that are required on pythons wider than two inches.
Others propose putting a bounty on the snakes and letting hunters fire away. That would require lifting the ban on hunting in the Everglades, but it’s a measure the U.S. Park Service is considering, given the gravity of the situation. At the Senate hearing on July 8, Nelson laid the skin of a 16-ft. Burmese python across the witness table and urged colleagues to “address this ecological crisis.” But even if the Senate doesn’t pass Nelson’s measure, last week’s tragedy at least ensures that more Floridians will take the python threat seriously [Time].
Related Content:
Discoblog: When Animals Invade, Part II: Giant Pythons Taking Over South Florida
80beats: Tricky Snake Hacks Its Prey’s Nervous System to Catch a Meal
80beats: Slithering Snakes Reveal the Secret of Limbless Locomotion
80beats: Super-Sized Snake Ate Crocodiles for Breakfast
Image: flickr / benjgibbs
July 10th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Here in Cali, ferrets and hedgehogs are illegal because “they could get loose and kill everything in the environment” despite the fact they’ve been domesticated animals for quite some time. Snakes are never domesticated, they’re just not hungry enough to kill us yet. Quite legal here!
July 10th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
There are the pythons in areas few humans care to tread, Florida wilderness, their perfect habitat. They must be efficient predators to be thriving and really, what are they eating? Native species, young livestock, pets and now a child, with python teeth marks on her young head.
The population of monitor lizards is also steadily spreading and they are at least equally as lethal, perhaps more. In their native lands, they attack and kill people, livestock and water buffalo. They have been found from Orlando south. Both are spreading north to a state near you. Monitors like to wait by trails for their prey, and feed at night. Stop them now or never.
July 11th, 2009 at 10:10 am
This is a good example of an animal taking advantage of an ecological niche we probably cleared out. I think it’s pretty unrealistic of people to believe we can somehow re-engineer “native” ecosystems. When you think of it, less than ten thousand years ago North America hosted animals like Wooly Mammoths and Sabretooth Tigers. Whether we brought their demise or not, new species took over their niches and a new balance was struck. Maybe Pythons won’t survive people’s efforts to control them, but life will still find some balance here. Whatever the case, we probably can’t pick and choose what will make it and what won’t all the time.
July 12th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
A pet python recently killed a child in Orlando.
July 13th, 2009 at 8:46 am
The problem is that when people buys these exotic species they are not truly aware of how big these snakes get and what it takes to care for them. The state should immediately initiative an easy way for owners to “unload” there unwanted pets at animal control or pet stores with no questions asked. I think the bounty idea is pretty good. Add dollar signs behind snake skins and your sure to see the population drop.
July 13th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Healthy ecosystems require predators to maintain balance. If we kill off one killer animal because we didn’t take the necessary precautions and a person is killed, a different predator will ultimately take it’s place. Keeping a large predator in the house with a small child is probably a bad idea.
July 26th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Skwish,
On one hand, I’d agree that we need the large NATIVE predators returned to the ecosystem, but on the other hand, I’m afraid you don’t understand the seriousness of exotic invasives.
These snakes and the myriad of other invasive exotics loose in Florida are absolutely transforming the state’s ecosystem. When a new species is turned loose in an environment it’s like playing Russian roulette with the ecosystem. Some species (plant and animal) don’t make it, others relatively peacefully coexist, but others can expand without control and totally disrupt everything. You never know until it’s too late.
Some well known examples include: hydrilla, water hyacinths, Brazilian pepper and melaleuca. Other less known species include: Cuban tree frogs, Tilapia and Cane Toads.
The truth is that the entire Florida ecosystem is rapidly being displaced by these introduced species. There’s nearly a million acres (yes million) in south Florida that is nothing but Brazilian Pepper trees. Nothing eats it and it overpowers anything in its way.
Pythons are just one more nail in the Florida’s coffin.
August 17th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
Despite the scare-mongering of this story, I have the solution to the python problem in just three positive words: “tastes like chicken.”
Up to 154 lbs do you say? Good lord! Imagine how many frog legs you’d need to put that much meat in your larder! Alligators are a protected species, but I’ll bet these pythons are just as good. And look at that dyn-o-mite beautiful snakeskin! You people need to stop seeing the glass as “half empty.” This glass is “full up,” and that’s a fact!
September 22nd, 2009 at 11:31 am
You got it, Leif. I’v eaten snake and it is good and talked to a WWII from the SE Asia area who survived Jap prision camps eating python!