When it comes to invasive species in the United States, we can immediately think of Asian carp and wild boar.
These species have caused serious damage to the ecological environment of the United States, but it has to be said that at least they have not posed a great threat to human life.
But this invasive species that we are going to talk about today, many people will be frightened to faint at a glance, what is it? It turned out to be a Burmese python as one of the six giant pythons in the world.
Burmese pythons can grow to more than 5-7 meters long and weigh more than 100 pounds
How fertile are Burmese pythons? How did the Burmese python invade the United States? What harm does the Burmese python bring to the United States? What methods will the Americans use to eliminate the Burmese python? Next, let's take a look at why the giant python that "occupies the mountain as the king" in the United States can breed so wildly.
"Occupy the mountain as king" and breed like crazy
The Burmese python is a giant python native to the tropical rainforests of Southeast Asia, second only to the forest hopper and the reticulated python. Adult Burmese pythons can reach an average length of 7 meters and weigh about 100 kilograms. In the Guinness Book of World Records, the longest Burmese python has a foot of 9.75 meters. The Human-reared Burmese python, located in the Illinois Wildlife Park in the United States, reached a body length of 8.2 meters and a weight of 182 kilograms in the 2005 record.
Burmese pythons that are kept in captivity
In contrast, female Burmese pythons are larger. Every year in early spring is the season of burmese python fertility and reproduction, in fact, the temperature at this time is not very high, and even in many areas, the temperature is maintained at zero or even below. In the low temperature environment, it is not suitable for hatching of young snakes, but burmese pythons will use the muscles of their whole body to rub and provide the heat energy for the eggs to hatch.
It is understood that a female Burmese python can produce an average of 60-100 snake eggs per year. Juvenile snakes grow very quickly, almost incubating for at least 1.5 years to grow into mature individuals. Males grow to 2-3 meters, and females grow to more than 2.5 meters to reach sexual maturity.
The reproductive ability is strong, and the survival rate of eggs is also high
It is by virtue of its excellent reproductive ability that the Burmese python can grow and flood freely in the United States. Especially in Florida, usa, the swamps here have been largely invaded by Burmese pythons. According to incomplete statistics, there are about 300,000 Burmese pythons in the whole of Florida. Why incomplete statistics? Because one of the special skills of these Burmese pythons living in Florida is that their skin color is almost well integrated with the swamps and trees.
Can you find burmese pythons here?
Young Burmese pythons will hang in trees and hide in them, while adult Burmese pythons have strong swimming ability and can stay in swamps and water for half an hour, so some Burmese pythons have escaped the eyes of Americans.
- Burmese pythons have few natural predators
One reason why Burmese pythons are breeding in large numbers in Florida is that in 1992, it was hit by Hurricane Andrew and a large number of houses were destroyed, including, of course, the place where Burmese pythons were kept.
Destroyed houses
So a large number of Burmese pythons fled to the wild and continued a new round of "occupying the mountain as king". Another reason, of course, is that there are almost no natural enemies of Burmese pythons here. Before the Burmese python came, it was almost always inhabited by small animals, such as rabbits, raccoons and possums. Not only are these animals unable to fight the Burmese python, but they are also reduced to the plate of the python.
It is understood that from 2003 to 2011, the number of raccoons fell by 99.3%, the number of possums fell by 98.9%, the number of rabbits fell by 94.1%, and the number of foxes fell by 87.5%.
The little animals that were badly injured
Although officials believe that part of the reason for this is that the overloading of cars causes traffic jams, and then many animals are crushed to death. But considering the number of Burmese pythons in Florida, it's hard to believe that these vanished animals weren't swallowed up by them.
Burmese python invades the United States
So why is the Burmese python flooding in the United States? When did the invasion of the United States begin? In fact, like many invasive animals, these Burmese pythons first appeared in the wild in the United States because of the release of some people. The need for the market is a big reason for the introduction of Burmese pythons in the United States, and some Americans who like to climb pets have taken a fancy to the Burmese pythons that have become albino caused by mutations in the Burmese python gene.
The skin around them is mainly of foreign color, with yellowish and pale orange spots, so it is also called the golden python. Another, almost completely bleached Burmese python, is also popular with Americans.
The Burmese python after albinism, also known as the golden python
So people in the pet market saw this business opportunity and introduced this variant from Southeast Asia. Generally, Burmese pythons that are still in the state of juvenile snakes are introduced, and their body length is generally about tens of centimeters. So many people have brought these seemingly cute Burmese pythons home.
But it won't be long before these snake keepers will find that Burmese pythons grow extremely fast, growing to several meters in almost a year, which is not something that ordinary pet climbing enthusiasts can control. So there were people who could no longer raise Burmese pythons and released them back into the wild.
At the beginning, the "little cute" grew into a giant python
In addition to personally raising Burmese pythons, there are also some farmers who will also make a profit from a large number of Burmese pythons. Leather products such as leather bags and leather coats made of snakeskin have always been popular in the market. There is no albino Burmese python, the body color is also relatively light, with obvious black lines, which can only be blamed for the colorful texture is loved.
As a result, many farmers specialize in raising Burmese pythons and selling them to local or world-famous leather companies. However, as mentioned above, some farms have caused a large number of Burmese pythons to flow out of the wild due to natural disasters, so they have led to a large number of Burmese pythons invading the United States.
Snakeskin bags on the market
The United States offers a reward for the killing of Burmese pythons
Like many invasive species, the Burmese python is also a very difficult master. The U.S. government has taken consistent measures to offer a reward for hunting. But burmese pythons are more special, they are really large, and they are snakes, so even if there is a high bounty, ordinary people in the United States do not dare to come forward to hunt.
Before ordering the hunt, in 2010 the Florida government issued laws and regulations prohibiting locals from buying or adopting Burmese pythons on the grounds of pet ownership and reducing the import of Burmese pythons. Because many people dare not hunt Burmese pythons, the official can only organize professional hunters to hunt and kill. The U.S. government organizes volunteers to participate in the competition through competitions. The participants are divided into a registered hunter group and an amateur hunter group, and the competition time is about one month.
Burmese python hunting competition
By 2016, more than 1,600 people had competed, but in the end, in a month's time, only 106 Burmese pythons had been killed. By 2017, the United States had also set up a special python removal program and hired 25 professional snake catcher experts as full-time hunters, not only with a fixed salary, but also with different commissions for the length of the Burmese pythons they were killed.
Hunting a Burmese python with a length of 1.2 meters can get a commission of $50, and on this basis, you can get an additional commission of $25 for every additional 0.3 meters. The most important thing is that these hunted pythons can also be disposed of by the snake catchers themselves, and the python meat and skin can be retained without violating the regulations. As of 2020, the U.S. python eradication program has successfully killed more than 5,000 Burmese pythons, but it will take a long time to eliminate them all.
The three of them work together to kill a Burmese python
If burmese pythons are hunted by human beings alone, it is estimated that they will never be able to kill them like other invasive animals. So American experts proposed that alligators could be used to control the number of Burmese pythons. Because they found that although the alligators who originally lived in the swamp could not compete with the adult Burmese pythons, they still had a certain ability to strangle the juvenile Burmese pythons. According to relevant data, after the reintroduction of a group of alligators, the number of Burmese pythons has declined to a certain extent.
alligator
However, the alligator's hunting of young snakes still has certain limitations, because many young snakes will basically hang on trees, only a small number will live on land, and on land, they will also have a fixed area of activity. Therefore, the number of Burmese pythons that can be killed by alligators is still not very large, so to solve the problem of Burmese pythons, it is still necessary to rely on multiple forces.
China has listed the Burmese python as a First Class Protected Animal
However, it is worth mentioning that there are also some Burmese pythons living on the mainland, but their fate is very different from that of the Burmese pythons in the United States. The number of burmese pythons in the mainland has decreased a lot under the large-scale hunting of people, especially the mainland snake has a history of thousands of years, in addition to the snake skin made into leather, there are a large number of juvenile snakes hunted to make a delicacy.
Braised snake (do not eat wild game)
Therefore, in 1988, the mainland included it in the "List of Wild Animals under National Key Protection" and designated it as a first-class protected animal.