Posted on 03/04/2018 3:24:00 PM PST by nickcarraway
That’s a heck of a meal! The Conservancy of Southwest Florida documented a Burmese python eating a white-tailed deer that weighed more than the python itself.
According to The Conservancy of Southwest Florida, which does research on python behavior and habitats in order to help control the population of the invasive species, this is believed to be the largest predator-to-prey ratio documented for the Burmese python, and possibly for any species of python.
The findings will be published in the March 2018 issue of Herpetological Review.
This snake, an 11-foot female, was found in Collier Seminole State Park on April 7, 2015.
After capturing the snake and moving it to an open area, the snake began to regurgitate a young white-tailed deer.
The fawn weighed 35 pounds, which was 111-percent the mass of the python, which weighed 31.5 pounds.
“This observation is another important piece of evidence for the negative impact invasive Burmese pythons are having on native wildlife across the Greater Everglades Ecosystem” said Ian Bartoszek, Conservancy of Southwest Florida wildlife biologist.
“Imagine the potential consequences to the state and federally protected Florida panther if Burmese pythons adversely affect the number of white-tailed deer, a panther’s primary prey.”
Biologists wonder if the Burmese python may be able to negatively impact the population of white-tailed deer by preying on young fawns before they are old enough to mate. Some studies suggest the Burmese python is responsible for a 90 percent decline in small mammal populations in the eastern Everglades.
The Conservancy of Southwest Florida’s mission is to protect the region’s water, land wildlife and future.
The Conservancy of Southwest Florida is involved in Burmese python research in order to better understand their breeding and eating habits in an effort to help control the population.
Anyone who buys and releases a snake like this in the US should be the next meal for the snake. It’s disgusting.
Absolutely identical to importing Muslims into Western civilization.
Want to get rid of pythons? Instead of euthanizing young feral cats, sterilize them, feed them nothing but python and then release them into the wild. Cats are wily hunters. They would find and eat python nests and would be a fair match for the adults especially if they cats form packs.
I will never understand the desire to keep a snake as a pet.
These animals should never have been allowed to be imported.
Yeah, what could go wrong.
South Florida has large breeding populations of pythons. The chances are as high as 90% the snake is home grown, born and bred.
An idiot I work with raises and breeds these pythons. He sells them for $1500. Like redneck Alpaca ranchers out of trailer homes.
You can even equip them with digital cameras coillars and GPS devices. Nothing to lose. Don’t underestimate the ferocity of a hungry American alley cat.
Perhaps she’ll die!
Send in the mongooses! Or is that mongeese?
Laugh all you like. Don’t kill those feral cats. Give them a fighting chance against the pythons.
Yes, but they’re not indigenous. Ultimately they’re decedents of snakes that were brought here.
Cats are snacks for pythons.
Not to mention alley cats are snacks for bobcats, foxes and coyotes... putting an alley cat in the Everglades is like dangling a chicken over a gator pond.
If I remember right, the ahole was a pet shop owner whose shop was damaged in the big hurricane down there, and the snakes escaped during the storm.
The first of these were discovered in the Everglades National Park back in the 1980’s. The Burmese pythons in Florida are classified as an invasive species in the area. Invasive species disrupt the introduced ecosystem by preying on native species, out competing native species for food. Because of their large size, and as a nonnative species, adult Burmese pythons have few predators within Florida, apart from alligators and humans. Burmese pythons were the dominant predator of reintroduced marsh rabbits in Everglades National Park, and predation by pythons extirpated the rabbit population in less than 11 months.
One of the most contentious issues related to the Burmese python population in Florida is the potential spread to other areas of the southern United States. A potential limitation to a species’s habitat range is climate. In February 2008, USGS scientists published a projected range map for the US, based on average climate data of the snake’s home range which predicted that by the end of the 21st century, these snakes could migrate to and flourish in as much as a third of the continental United States, including all three coasts.
rwood
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