News Report Spring 2012: Pythons!
· Good news: There are no large snakes native to North America- no boa constrictors, no anacondas, no pythons
· The bad news: There are currently between 30,000 and 100,000 (150,000) enormous Burmese pythons roaming around Florida (The Everglades) and they’re pretty much impossible to control.
o 12 feet long and eat almost anything, up to and including alligators. Recent study shows raccoon and possums are down more than 98%, bobcat down 87%, and rabbits and foxes are gone.
· Obviously present a huge threat to the ecosystem here, but how did they get here?
o Nat Geo video ( http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2010/01/25/florida_python_hunter/ )
o 1:00-2:20
· Pythons are known for being very adaptive to their environments, almost undetectable by prey, and deadly for the fact that can attack from land or underwater.
· Efforts are underway to control population by barring python importation.
Questions:
· What should be done to solve this problem? How do we get rid of 30,000+ snakes?
o Offering rewards for hunting them may be effective
· Though nobody knows for sure how this happened, and it was probably accidental, is there anything we can or should be doing to prevent invasive species from creating a situation like this?
o Probably not: another theory is that pet owners dumped their unwanted exotic pets nearby, which may have caused this problem and the introduction of a number of other non-native species. There are just too many variables, but perhaps the only option, though imperfect, is to just try to be vigilant.
· Have you heard of any similar stories?
Adam’s NR comes to mind
Conclusion:
· Obviously this is kind of a sad story that doesn’t have any clear solution. I think this will be important to watch as an example to deal with situations like this that may become more common in light of climate change’s impact on ecosystems.
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