Posted on 01/16/2016 9:49:57 AM PST by george76
Burmese python invasive to Everglades. The Burmese python, one of the largest snakes in the world, is running amok in Florida.
Well, more like slithering amok.
So much so that on Saturday, state officials kick off a month-long competition designed to remove as many of the colossal constrictors from the Everglades as possible.
More than 600 people have signed up for the Python Challenge, according to Carli Segelson, a spokeswoman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which organized the event.
A cash prize goes to the hunter who captures -- dead or alive -- the most Burmese pythons, as well as one for the longest one.
Why? Because the Burmese python, which can be as large as 23 feet long and weigh up to 200 pounds, doesn't belong in the Everglades, in Florida -- or even in this hemisphere for that matter.
...
Even though it seems like such a large snake would be easy to find or see, only a very small fraction of pythons present in the park are ever detected
...
Just how hard are they to find? In the inaugural Python Challenge in 2013, 1,600 hunters could only produce 68 of them. In fact, the Burmese python is so hard to detect, Segelson said there are no reliable estimates as to how many of them there actually are in Florida -- but they've been a long-simmering problem for the state.
...
the invasive species is responsible for causing the near "complete disappearance of raccoons, rabbits and opossums
(Excerpt) Read more at wyff4.com ...
It’s Whacking Day!!!
No bounty on the snake?
Free snakes, if anyone can catch them.
What happens when there are no more rabbits to eat?
Do the pythons move on and try to go for dogs, kids, horses, adults?
Or will they die out from lack of food? Eat each other?
Or expand their territory?
Hard to believe a predator that goes for long periods between meals could be responsible for the disappearance of something as prolific as rabbits.
Python is “a stomach with a mouth”.
If it can swallow it, it will eat it.
Reason there is a snake problem is: some nitwit who shouldn’t have had pets of any kind dumped his snakes in the Everglades.
Followed by them breeding.
And a few other nitwits dumping snakes.
(Unmentioned: PETA dumped some reptiles they “ liberated” from let’s hope. The damn retards.)
So now there’s a problem.
However, it is also an opportunity for enterprising souls to catch a free snake.
Another bogus “hunt”.
The reason so few were caught is that they’re all dying of respiratory infections, thanks to the “global warming” cold spells down there.
Fact is, development and Big Sugar are responsible for the decline of native animals.
Google photos of the swamp, then and now.
Huge tracts have been back filled and houses put on them and the water has been diverted for the houses.
But yeah, blame it on snakes.
They’re evil and make great scapegoats.
No one is hunting the non-native birds and iguanas that have displaced native species or the millions of feral cats, killing everything.
People would pitch a fit, if they did, reality be damned.
“let’s hope”?!
I hate autocorrect.
Petshops.
I heard they ear Rats’ too. Just catch one of them and release at the DNC.
Yup.
And nitwits dumping pets.
I shudder to think if they had kids.
!!!!
Would be amusing.
Yeah.
They hunt people.
:::rolls eyes::
Snakes didn’t wipe out the critters.
Development did.
Research it for yourself.
What happens when there are no more rabbits to eat?
Do the pythons move on and try to go for dogs, kids, horses, adults?
Or will they die out from lack of food? Eat each other?
Or expand their territory?
I didn’t really think the snakes did.
You are wrong.
Hurricane Andrew destroyed a breeding facility and the surviving snakes simply swam out.
Maybe they’ll be more successful on Whack It Wednesdays?
I don’t have my bookmarks on this machine but there are satellite images of the glades before developers and sugar plantations got hold of it.
The photos are sickening.
Less than a third of the original glades remain, the rest taken over by massive housing tracts and huge sugar plantations that pump toxins into the water.
*That* is where all the animals went.
Like they’d be honest enough to admit it.
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