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.
Sorry, you are very wrong. Cats would hold their own against adult pythons and would destroy nests.
Cats don’t like being in water. Most don’t. The Everglades is water.
Take Broward County high-school students python hunting. I bet most would love it.
I know I would.
Think your child or pet or you being killed by these snakes.
Time to eradicate them, and it won’t be easy.
Kinda like the old cartoon where you have mice, so you send in cats, then you have to send in the dogs to get rid of the cats, then you have to send in the lions to get the dogs,then you have to send in the elephants to get rid of the lions, then you have to send in the mice to get rid of the elephants.
The snakes have about a 2 to 4 year growth to breeding age, once hatched. That would mean the snakes put in the Everglades in 1988 would be thirty years old but could have mated before 1990. That would make a possible 8 generations of around 35 to 100 eggs per snake per season, possibly more. And if they didn’t have a fairly high hatchling mortality rate, they would already by in charge at Disney World. Easier to just burn the state of Florida to be sure. The whole state.
rwood
That’s a pretty small deer. A juvenile, I presume?
I grew up camping and tromping through the swamps, prairies and hammocks of the Big Cypress and Everglades.
You could not pay me to go back and do it today.
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