The story of the Burmese python

In the above photo taken in Big Cypress Swamp at  top right, there is a young Burmese python swimming in leaf covered water. If you click on the photo, it will enlarge making it easy to spot it. Pythons this size, two feet or less, scare the hell out of environmentalists. Why? Young, they indicate there's  a breeding population. Plus, I saw only two, and there typically is from 20 to 60 eggs in a clutch. The fear is they will overrun the Everglades.

In its first year a python grows to six feet or longer. Fully mature they can reach 20 feet. Long before they do so, they pose a risk to their owners, children and pets. They also become problematic to feed. While mice are adequate for a very young snake, rabbits and such become the diet of more mature specimens. Zoos don't want them because there's such an abundance. Instead of killing them many owners choose to release them, and the subtropical climate of the Everglades suits them well. Cold snaps such as that in the winter of 2009-2010 killed off many. However, experts believe that overall they are thriving, and some estimate they number in the 1000s in the Everglades.

Hurricane Andrew in 1992 devastated Homestead, Florida, a city which lies just north of Everglades National Park. Many buildings were totally destroyed, including pet shops. Exotic pets such as Burmese pythons were released into the wild. Even before that, in the 1980s, park rangers had sighted a few pythons, but a breeding population didn't appear to exist. Instead of dying out the population has increased due partily to pet owners releasing them.

What makes them scarey to me is how well they blend into their environment. You have to look hard to see the one in the above photo. Out of water they are even harder to see, their brown markings blending in well with almost any ground cover. They are not aggressive but instead lie still quietly waiting for prey to cross their path.

When they sight prey, they strike and latch onto it with many, many rows of razorsharp teeth. Curved inward the teeth are well designed to make escape difficult if not impossible. Pythons are not poisonous. Constrictors, they wrap themselves around their prey and squeeze them to the point they can no longer breathe.

Due to their size pythons have few predators. Alligators pose their greatest risk. Documented matches between them have declared the outcome to be a draw, 50-50, favoring neither one. In 2005 Everglades National Park released a photograph showing one outcome of an alligator-python clash. A 15-foot python tried to eat a five or six foot gator. The gator, swallowed but still alive, clawed its way out of the pthon's abdomen, and they both died.

Environmentalists worry the pythons will disturb the balance in the Everglades. Many native animals such as deer, squirrels, raccoons, foxes, otters and others native solely to the Everglades become the python's prey. Park rangers are already noticing sharp declines in various animal populations such as deer.

Efforts to capture and kill pythons have been underway for quite a while. One unique approach is Python Pete, a beagle trained to sniff them out. The state is issuing licenses to hunt the snakes and has established a hunting season.