A few days ago, the Associated Press reported a somewhat shocking news, the annual Florida "python hunting event" officially began, more than 800 contestants in about 11 days, competing for the largest number of python hunting and the longest two awards, the first place will receive thousands of dollars in prize money, and the target of the hunt is the Burmese python!
The Burmese python is a first-class protected animal on the mainland, how did it become a hunting object in the United States?
I believe that everyone must be a little confused, because all pythons in the mainland are protected animals, and burmese pythons are first-class protected animals, so hunting Burmese pythons in the mainland is a big crime, but in the United States, Burmese pythons have become the object of legal hunting, but also set up a high bonus to encourage hunting, what is going on?
Python removal program
Burmese pythons go from pets to floods: just 30 years
In a paper published in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) on January 30, 2012, several scientists found that mammal and bird populations had declined significantly since 2000 in the Everglades region of southern Florida, with a 99.3 percent decline in sighting raccoons on 56,971 km of roads in the Everglades, and a 98.9 percent and 87.5 percent drop in observed frequencies of possums and bobcats, respectively, and no rabbits were observed.
Through data comparisons, scientists have found that this is directly related to the increase in the number of pythons in the Everglades, a Burmese python native to Southeast Asia that has expanded rapidly in southern Florida and is now spread across thousands of square kilometers of southern Florida, including the entire Everglades National Park (ENP), posing a deadly threat to hundreds of local prey species.
Comparison of the number of animal sightings
How exactly did the Burmese python get to Florida?
Burmese pythons originated in Southeast Asia giant snakes, its length up to 8 to 9 meters, weight up to 180 kg or more, its body of the general regular block pattern makes their recognition is very high, the same beautiful pattern makes their skin become a variety of luxury manufacturing raw materials, after years of poaching, southeast Asia's Burmese python population has declined sharply, on the verge of extinction.
Although burmese pythons were only discovered in Florida's Everglades National Park in the 1990s and were not officially identified as breeding populations until 2000, it is documented that the species may have first been released into the wild in the 1980s.
South Florida's Everglades region is one of the largest wetlands in the United States, covering more than 6,000 square kilometers, about half the size of Rhode Island, and in its east is Miami, one of the most prosperous cities in the United States, and further north is the world-famous Cape Canaveral, the famous space launch site!
In the 1980s, the U.S. pet market began to rise, a large number of rare species in the world became american pets, Burmese python cubs are very cute, a large number of Americans have raised this very eye-catching animal, but the size of the Burmese python is almost "unlimited", it has been growing all its life, until most people feel that this is a burden, and there are feelings for so many years, so they are released into the wild, which is a way for the Myanmar python in the Great Swamp region to come from.
Hurricane Andrew made landfall, with the center near Homestead
The other is the hot pet market in the United States that has spawned local farms for Burmese pythons, and Hurricane Andrew in August 1992 added a fire to the flooding of Burmese pythons in the Everglades, as Category 5 Hurricane Andrew destroyed Burmese python breeding facilities and an unknown number of Burmese pythons fled directly into the Everglades.
The Marsh region of southern Florida is around 25° north latitude, similar to the Fujian region of the mainland, which is also the northernmost area where the Burmese python can survive, without the problem of natural enemies and artificial capture, in the following decades, the Burmese python quietly developed, although the field of view of the swamp area witnessed this snake, but no one would ever think that this animal will one day become the owner of this place.
The purple area represents the python area discovered in the 1990s. The red triangle represents the origin of the pythons found between 2008 and 2009
Burmese pythons are seemingly harmless reptiles, but they are very frightening, from infancy to catch small animals, birds, swamp rats, gradually grow up to swamp rabbits and swamp area wrens to large blue herons, and in adulthood began to catch bobcats, even deer and top predator leopards and crocodiles are within their diet range, simply eat everything.
How many Burmese pythons are there in the Everglades?
According to the scientists' survey, between 1996 and 1997 and 2003-2011, the average encounter rates of possums, raccoons and foxes in the Great Swamp region were 44%, 89% and 83% lower than the historical encounter rates of ENP, respectively, while the encounter rate of Burmese pythons increased exponentially from 2000, with a total of 30,000 sightings reported from 2008 to 2010.
The number of python sightings has risen sharply
Unofficial reports suggest that there may be 30,000 to 300,000 Burmese pythons in the Everglades, but more researchers believe that the total number of Burmese pythons in Florida is as high as 1 million! Burmese pythons can reach adulthood at the age of 4, and a female Burmese python can lay 60 to 100 eggs per year, their life span is up to 20 years, and their protective color is perfectly integrated with the environment.
Burmese python recipes with its ho ho ho animal numbers
As a result, the number of Burmese pythons is exploding exponentially over time, and no scientific organization can assess how many Burmese pythons are actually in Florida. While animal experts were having a headache about the matter, in a 10-year research program that began in 2001, USGS investigators were horrified to discover two terrible facts:
- One is that 13 of the 400 pythons captured have the genetic characteristics of Indian rock pythons in their DNA. This python is notorious for being smaller, faster, and more aggressive than the Burmese python, which is
- The second is that in January 2010, the southern United States was hit by a cold snap, and a large number of Burmese pythons died in the cold, but many more Burmese pythons survived the cold snap, and after harsh natural selection, these snakes will likely adapt to the colder climate and spread to states and counties outside of Florida.
These uncontrolled Burmese pythons pose a serious threat to the ecology of the Everglades, and since 2012 the U.S. Department of the Interior has banned the import of Burmese pythons and listed them as invasive species, but this is just the beginning, and what is really needed is to control the wild spread of Burmese pythons within the 20,202 square kilometers of the swamp.
Controlling the spread of Burmese pythons, Florida has exhausted donkey skills!
Burmese pythons can continue to spread in the marshland because the environment here is very suitable for the survival of this reptile, the vegetation coverage is very high and dense water network, and there are no natural enemies and hunting, in addition to the temperature is slightly lower than Southeast Asia, almost is the paradise of the Burmese python, in this area to control the spread of The Burmese python, its difficulty can be imagined.
In order to control the Burmese python, the Florida authorities racked their brains to think of many ways, including many brain-opening methods, until a few years ago came up with an excellent "participation for all" activity, only from the momentum has changed, but the actual effect is geometric, only the ghost knows!
Discovery is hunting: but how can the problem be discovered?
The swamp area is densely watered, most of the places are inaccessible, it is simply impossible to search with human hands, so some experts recommend using dogs to search, but what surprises experts is that the dog's search is only 4% more efficient than human search, which is simply shocking, the reason is simple, pythons often haunt the swamp, and water will mask the smell, in the dense vegetation covered area, a large number of rotten plants mask the smell of snakes.
Map of the park
Since then, experts have considered python traps and created a large number of Burmese python traps that can only be entered but cannot climb to catch, and the results are not satisfactory, because Burmese pythons rarely move and only act when hunting, only a very small number of Burmese pythons mistakenly fall into traps, and a large number of python traps are useless, but accidentally become traps for other animals.
Experts with poor donkey skills have proposed biological control, such as bobcats like to eat python eggs, but the problem is that bobcats themselves are less and less strangled by pythons, how to control Burmese pythons? Viruses, parasites and bacteria have since been proposed, and it is clear that these methods cannot target one type of Burmese python, and there will be indiscriminate attacks, which may lead to more serious consequences.
Even considered electronic beacons, such as capturing male Burmese pythons to make beacons and release them into the wild, and then hunting their breeding nests according to Tu Suoji, but the problem is that the python itself breeds once a year, and most of the time "lives alone" and does not act, so the hunting squad is often empty.
Bounty hunters to the whole people hunting: the momentum overwhelms the Burmese python
In the face of burmese pythons hidden in the depths of the swamp, the Poor Florida authorities completely lost their temper, but the Americans with hunting instincts did not concede defeat, on February 16, 2013, Florida held a month-long python challenge, 1600 people registered to participate in the python hunting activities, but unfortunately only 68 pythons were captured a month later, the most captured player received a reward of $1500, and the longest python was rewarded with $1000.
On February 27, 2016, the Python Challenge was held again, and more than 1,000 players captured 106, and a 15-foot (about 4.6 meters) python caught by Bill Booth from Sarasota was determined to be the longest, and he also won the expert who caught the most pythons.
Since then, the python challenge has gradually become held every year, and the time has been moved to August 5 to August 15, because pythons are easier to find in such hot weather.
2022 Hunt Registration Page
The "National Challenge" competition seems to be more inclined to popularize the knowledge of python flooding, and the real control of the number of pythons is still very limited, and while the Florida authorities are carrying out these "recreational activities", a "Python Elimination Program" was launched in 2017, which, like the "Python Challenge" competition, aims to kill Burmese pythons, but this activity is long-term:
- 1. Recruit professional python killers to hunt Burmese pythons in designated areas for a long time;
- 2. The professional python killer costs 10 to 15 US dollars per hour, and the maximum hunting time per day is 10 hours;
- 3. Pay an additional $50 for each python that does not exceed 4 feet (about 1.22 meters) to be killed; an additional $25 is paid for each python over 4 feet;
- 4. Pay an additional $200 for each verified python nest destroyed;
Therefore, a professional python killer, according to 10 hours a day, catch 4 pythons, then he gets paid 150 + 200 = 350 US dollars, according to 22 days a month, a total of 7700 US dollars, plus rewards and other generally 8500 ~ 9000 US dollars, the annual income is about 100,000 US dollars, for the ordinary people in the United States, this income is already quite OK.
Python removal plan page
In addition, what makes hunters more excited is that these hunted Burmese pythons are officially only used for statistics, and then the contestants can handle the python meat and snake skin by themselves, obviously the snake meat is not easy to handle, but the snake skin is a treasure, so this will also bring them an additional income.
On November 9, 2018, LiveSicence reported that a professional python bounty hunter, Kyle Penniston, had killed a 27-foot-5-inch (5.3-meter) python weighing about 54 kilograms in the Florida Everglades, receiving a $375 reward.
According to SFWMD (South Florida Water Management District) (Male Florida Water Management), the python elimination program has removed nearly 1,900 invasive snakes since March 2017, and it seems that this profession is indeed much more effective than amateur. By July 2020, the South Florida Water Resources Management District and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission announced that a total of 5,000 had been removed.
On July 10, 2020, the USGS published an article on its official website stating that the Burmese python infestation in southern Florida is not under control, and agencies such as the National Geological Survey (USGS), the National Park Service (NPS), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), and the Southwest Florida Conservancy have invested heavily in research and surveys here.
In fiscal 2020, the Home Office invested more than $142 million in invasive species management activities, including prevention, early detection and rapid response, control and research, not just for Burmese pythons, but also for invasive species such as Asian carp and zebra mussels, with $3 million going directly to python removal programs in 2022.
The key is to form a python meat and snakeskin ecology
In addition to eliminating the Burmese python from the technical and operational aspects, Florida is also actively forming the economic ecology of the Burmese python, such as the formation of the consumption habits of the Burmese python, etc., the local launch of the Burmese python pizza and a variety of snake meat products, but unfortunately, dr. David Krabbenhoft, an environmental chemist at the U.S. Geological Survey, found that the mercury content of the Burmese python in Florida is too high. It reached 3.5ppm, and in Florida, as long as it exceeds 1.5ppm, it is not recommended to eat, so the current consumption is completely unmoved.
The python skin, on the other hand, cannot form a sustainable ecology due to the unstable source and different sizes, which is also a very annoying problem, because once the ecological chain is formed, the cultivation of the Burmese python will form a climate, which will be of no help to the treatment of the harm of the Burmese python.
However, the burmese python breeds day and night in the swamp area, and the "python removal plan" and the "Burmese python hunting activity" are more than a small episode in the process of this spread, and it is even impossible to contain the Burmese pythons that may have a base of hundreds of thousands.
Extended reading: Can such a large Burmese python kill people?
The answer is that it is completely possible to kill people, but fortunately, there are few people in the swamp area, and most of the people who go to the area are professional hunters, so so far, Burmese pythons have no record of killing, but they can easily kill alligators, and their lethality is very strong.
In 2018, Daniel Moniz, a python hunter from Bricktown, N.J., was bitten in the face, neck and arms by a 13-foot, 8.7-inch python while hunting, and although he completed his Wildlife Commission training and also had more than a month of hunting experience, he was still injured, which was also the first time a bounty hunter hung up, and apparently this will not be the last time. (End)
Resources:
https://apnews.com/article/oddities-miami-snakes-florida-reptiles-8479459c3f9f386edd751f3a7e2e6528
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1115226109
https://www.sfwmd.gov/our-work/python-program
https://www.usgs.gov/news/national-news-release/usgs-and-partners-tracking-and-removing-burmese-pythons-southern-florida