Can the python invasion be stopped?

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First, there are outfits like Kirkland's, which employ contractors to track and capture snakes year-round. Each capture and slaughter follows ethical guidelines and federal laws regarding the transportation of illegal pets. " You have to respect them as the beautiful living creatures that they are ," says Kirkland. " They are here for reasons beyond their control ."

And for six of the last 10 years, Florida has attempted to educate the public about invasive species and the foolishness of keeping pythons as pets, thanks to the Florida Python Challenge, a 10-day event for amateur python hunters, in collabo Phone Number List ration with the agency wildlife state. The participants capture the snakes, which they euthanize. This year, at least 840 participants signed up for $17,500 in prizes. The count of this year's hunt has not yet been made public, but in each of the last two hunts there were more than 200 captures. "It really does a lot to educate the public," Kirkland points out, "to teach the importance of why an invasive exotic pet should not be allowed outside."

But scientists also want to know if non-human inhabitants of the Everglades are defending themselves against the python, specifically to see if pythons are naïve prey for another animal .

Could other species be preying on young pythons?
To answer this question, in 2020 and 2021 a team of USGS researchers implanted radio transmitters in 2- to 3-foot-long pythons and released them back into the Big Cypress National Preserve. The transmitters tracked movements to a radius of 3 metres, and each had a "mortality sensor", which was activated if the animal had not moved in 24 hours.

Nineteen young pythons died during the study period. Team members headed into the swamp to find out exactly where and how. They looked for every sign imaginable: paw prints, fur, bites, scratches and droppings. Dead snakes and transmitters appeared on the ground, in trees and under water. The team took the bodies to the laboratory to perform necroscopies. Twelve of the 19 cases had enough evidence to point to a killer, according to results published earlier this year in a study titled Natives bite back .



They expected some deaths, but not as many as they found, notes USGS ecologist Amy Yackel Adams, who is part of the team. "We were quite surprised, especially because of the predation of species native to Florida," she says.

Native alligators and cottonmouth snakes killed eight of the 12 , and mammals killed four. A cotton rat killed a python while being attacked . That rat was actually larger than the young snake, making it a risky meal. The team could not determine which mammals killed the other three pythons, but they have observed the presence of bobcats and coyotes in the area. It's possible that these species or others, such as birds, killed the other seven snakes, but researchers couldn't find enough evidence to rule out other possibilities, such as starvation.

"It's always nice to see native species taking over Burmese pythons, as that's often not the case," Miller said. She has seen alligators and crocodiles kill pythons, and a 15-foot python eat a 9-foot alligator. Miller contributed to the USGS review, but not to the Natives bite back study . His lab measures each Florida Python Challenge snake in the role of impartial judge.