Florida, or Florida, is the southernmost state of the contiguous United States, located on a prominent peninsula on the southeast coast of the United States. Florida, east of the Atlantic Ocean, west of the Gulf of Mexico, north of Alabama and Georgia, because of the three seas, a large number of beaches, waves, known as the "sunshine state", our familiar Miami is located in Florida.
Florida not only has a comfortable climate, but is also rich in natural resources, with swamps and green everywhere, and thousands of springs flowing out more than a billion gallons of clear spring water every day; It is also home to a wide range of animals, including crocodiles, raccoons, opossums and other rare animals, as well as Florida's most annoying invasive animal in recent decades, the Burmese python, which is also home to Florida's paradise for humans and animals.
Where does the Burmese python in Florida come from?
Burmese python, also known as southern snake, Burmese rock python, native to Asia and Southeast Asia, also distributed in small amounts in the mainland; Burmese pythons are tan overall, with dark brown spots on the back and sides. The spots vary in size and shape and have a black border. The background color between the spots is usually tan, brownish yellow. The top of the head is black, with a light stripe on the sides of the head that runs through the eyes and onto the nose, forming a dark V shape.
Burmese pythons belong to one of the six largest snakes in the world, their body length can reach about 8 meters, weighing more than 100 kilograms, comparable to reticulated pythons. However, limited by temperature, food and age, the total length of most adult Burmese pythons is only about 3~5 meters, but it is not small, this length is enough for them to kill a person and swallow.
How did such a terrifying Burmese python reach Florida across the ocean?
It can only be said that we do not understand the hobbies of foreigners! In the United States, there are always many people who are not afraid of death and like to treat pythons as pets, so in the 80s of last century, Florida's pet python trade began to flourish, of which Burmese pythons from Southeast Asia are one of the hottest pets and are sought after by many Americans.
However, many people simply follow the trend when buying pets, or they are hot-headed, and they do not know how dangerous pythons are, how much they can eat every day, and how big they grow. So when it came to their own control, many people began to be irresponsible and secretly put these pythons into the swamp, which became the first step for pythons to set foot in Florida.
When Category 5 storm Hurricane Andrew swept through Florida in 1992, the Burmese python in Florida officially began to enter a period of crazy growth; The hurricane destroyed several local python breeding bases, and a large number of pythons took the opportunity to escape into the Everglades of Florida, where they breed alongside Burmese pythons that had previously arrived here for various reasons, and Burmese pythons successfully established a population in Florida.
The rapid expansion of the Burmese python has encroached on the homes of native species, and crocodiles have become food for concern.
Burmese pythons are very adaptable. Although in the past they were only found in the tropical rainforests of Southeast Asia, they preyed on some small and medium-sized mammals. However, now the Burmese python has found a good place in Florida, with a hot climate, superior ecological environment, and lack of natural enemies, so it has expanded rapidly and has become a dominant species in the region.
Burmese pythons, which do not reproduce in their native environment, have grown exponentially in Florida; And the size of the Burmese python has also achieved a big breakthrough in the Florida swamps, scientists have found that the growth rate of the Burmese python in the Florida Everglades is very amazing, more and more Burmese pythons above 5 meters, and the maximum size in the swamp is still growing at a rate of 0.1 meters to 0.3 meters per year.
The large number of Burmese pythons and their huge size have finally brought a huge crisis to the local area. According to information published on the USGS government website, pythons have had a profound impact on mammals in the southernmost remote area of Florida's Everglades National Park, with raccoon populations falling by 99.3%, possums by 98.9%, lynx by 87.5% in 15 years from 1997 to 2012.
Since Americans discovered the horror of the Burmese python, which was listed as a pest by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2012 and banned anyone without approval from bringing the python into the United States.
At the same time, in order to maintain the ecology as much as possible, since 2017, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has launched a python eradication plan, in other words, because the python is too large, and especially hidden, ordinary people can not catch snakes at all, so pay to hire some snake catchers, let them catch snakes, because the salary will be calculated according to the length of the snake, sometimes a snake is still quite valuable, can earn hundreds of dollars.
Every year, Florida government agencies also hold the "Python Challenge" to attract more people to hunt snakes, and the 2022 python hunt has ended, attracting 1,000 hunters from all over the world, who hunted a total of 231 Burmese pythons in 10 days. The person who hunted the most ended up receiving $10,000, which shows that the Florida government has also invested in eliminating this harmful invasive species, and of course, the effect is obvious.
In this process, they also saw a worrying scene, because the hunted Burmese python will be euthanized, and the relevant agencies for sample collection, they found that in addition to the corpses of raccoons, swamp rabbits and other mammals, a 1.5-meter-long crocodile was also found in the belly of a 5.5-meter-long Burmese python.
This is actually very scary, these Burmese pythons can start killing crocodiles more than 1 meter, which further shows that the mammals in the swamp have reached a precarious point.
Epilogue:
Now that you think about it, it's no wonder that the mainland is so sensitive to alien species, and when a Canadian goldenrod appears in Shanghai, it immediately carries out relevant eradication operations.
The Burmese python in the Everglades of Florida, USA, is a good example, and invasive species are simply terrifying. If you can't control them well, there's a good chance it will be devastating to native species. At present, Burmese pythons have invaded the ecologically sensitive areas of Florida, in addition to causing a large number of mammals in Florida's southernmost remote marshland.
It is no wonder that the Florida government will introduce a python eradication plan, but it is estimated that there is still a long way to go to completely control the Burmese python, and it is said that the number of Burmese pythons in Florida has reached hundreds of thousands.