In recent years, the U.S. government has organized bounty hunter contests to encourage the hunting of Burmese pythons. But even then it was difficult to resist more than 30,000 large snakes. The current problem of species invasion is becoming more and more serious. The Burmese python in the United States is also a headache for the local government. In Florida, the number of Burmese pythons is increasing, and according to statistics, there are nearly 300,000 Burmese pythons in the whole of Florida. In the face of this large and lethal animal, local residents are very worried.
In order to solve this problem, the government has also tried many methods, but the results are not satisfactory, so it can only use high bounties to organize capable people to hunt Burmese pythons. In fact, nearly 5,000 pythons have been hunted in three years, but this rate is not at all comparable to the growth rate of Burmese pythons.
Burmese python
Burmese pythons are actually East Asian species and are very common in Myanmar and Thailand. They can also be seen in the southern part of the continent. They live in tropical rainforests all year round and are larger, second only to reticulated pythons. The body length of the Burmese python can reach 7 meters, and the weight can even reach more than 90 kilograms. The world's longest Burmese python is currently kept in a safari park in the United States, and its length is 9 meters long, and in 2005, the Burmese python weighed 183 pounds.
Burmese pythons, which mostly travel at night and hide in the bushes during the day, are good at climbing and swimming, and can even hold their breath in the water for half an hour. Because they prefer humid environments, they are very common in places where there is a water source, they are carnivores and also catch mammals. In the United States, they have few natural enemies, not even crocodiles and lizards, and they will survive unscrupulously as long as they survive their infancy.
How did the Burmese python invade the United States?
At first, many people raised this strange beast as a pet, but many breeders did not expect that this small snake could grow so fast, and a few years would be enough to grow into a giant python, so that many people could only abandon it. In addition, in the process of breeding, some Burmese pythons sneaked into the wild and developed in lakes and swamps. Burmese pythons reproduce at an alarming rate, they severely damage the local wetlands, the natural environment without natural predators also lays the groundwork for their unscrupulousness, and the ferocious crocodile will become its meal.
By the time locals started paying attention, they were already flooding. The U.S. government also spends time and money fishing, but the Burmese python is too large for ordinary people to get off, and the government can only order a national competition to kill the Burmese python, as long as it is to kill a Burmese python, you can receive a prize, and every year there will be many bounty hunters gathered in Florida to compete for the championship place.
Hunting the largest python can also receive a cash prize of $5,000. This sounds very cost-effective and makes a lot of people move. But in fact, the number of Burmese pythons killed by thousands of hunters each year is only nearly a hundred, not because the local hunting ability is not good, but mainly because the heartbeat does not represent action.
Although there must be brave men under heavy money, some hunters will form their own teams to clean up such alien species, and they can hunt legally and get paid, which is theoretically a beautiful thing. In the process, in addition to facing the threat of Burmese pythons, there will be other wild species interfering. Although small pythons are easier to deal with, they are extremely aggressive.
If a person is caught, it is difficult to deal with, and it is difficult to get out of being entangled with dozens of pounds of pythons. Although foreigners love to play and the number is small, in the face of giant pythons, many people really do not have the courage. Adult Burmese pythons are at least four or five meters long, and in this size, humans are just a plate of their appetizers, and when they encounter them in the wild, they don't know who eats whom.
It's not the first time that pets have been raised as an invasive species, Lao Mei
Vietnam's big-bellied pig was originally introduced to the United States as food, but because of its cute appearance, many people kept it as a pet, and some even walked it on the street with a leash. But they never expected that the growth rate of the big-bellied pig was extremely fast, and even grew to more than 200 pounds. The amount of food eaten every day catches up with the amount of people eat in a week, and they themselves emit a stinky smell at home, making the home dirty and messy.
At the same time, they are also destructive, belonging to one of the demolition pets, based on a variety of factors many people release them to breed, abandoned after the breeding rate of the big belly pig is also very amazing, they only need four months to get pregnant, and each litter can give birth to four to ten piglets.
Today, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, many big-bellied pigs roam the streets and rummage through garbage cans. There is also their uneven distribution, which is not easy to concentrate on arrest. At present, the number of large-bellied pigs in the United States has exceeded 6 million. Due to their long life in the wild, they may carry the virus on their bodies and therefore cannot slaughter and sell these pigs.
Why did the mainland protect the Burmese python instead?
However, the same kind of life, the United States Burmese python was hunted down, but the Mainland Burmese Python did not dare to hurt it, but also to provide for it, why should the mainland protect the Burmese python?
In March this year, the police in Sanya, Hainan Province, received an alarm call about snakes, it turned out to be a huge Burmese python curled up in the farm, this python will always be a small lamb directly swallowed, but because after swallowing the body became bulky, can not escape, so can only curl up in the cage, the villagers then called the police, the police quickly took the python away and handed over to the wildlife center staff for release. Burmese pythons can be classified as first-class protected animals in the mainland, why are they all flooded species in the United States, but they should be released on the mainland?
For now, the Burmese python has no tendency to flood the mainland because it has natural enemies such as the king cobra. And the survival of the python's cubs is not an easy task, and cobras will also hunt pythons. The Burmese python also plays a pivotal role in maintaining the ecological environment.
Adult pythons can reach a length of more than 5 meters, and will rely on strong strangulation ability to strangle small and medium-sized mammals, which has some restrictive effects on some flooded animals, such as the wild boar flooding on the mainland is also one of their recipes, so the Burmese python is also a particularly important part of the wild ecological environment. Various predators and human activities in the wild make their groups relatively vulnerable. To protect it is also to protect the entire ecological chain.
All in all, the problem of species invasions should not be underestimated. Water hyacinth and fushou snails have caused serious damage to the mainland economy. As the saying goes, "one thing drops one thing", there is no natural enemy, and in the end it is the local residents who are distressed, and the high reward order is useless.