News Forum - Burmese escapees rounded up in annual Florida snake wrangle

[Thaiger]

In stark contrast to the activities of a single reticulated python that recently swallowed a woman in Indonesia, a 19-year-old south Florida man has captured 28 Burmese pythons in an annual 10-day competition to rid the state of invasive species. Matthew Concepcion was among the 1,000 people who participated in the annual snake hunt, which this year “removed” 231 of the unwanted pythons. Concepcion was awarded the US$10,000 prize for the most serpents sent to snake heaven, with Dustin Crum winning  US$1,500 for removing the biggest python, at just over 3.3 metres. Concepcion has been hunting pythons for about five […]

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[Karolyn]

Burmese pythons are now established as invasive in the Everglades. As are a number of escaped exotics. The truth is, parts of Florida are the only tropical part of North America, unless you include Central America. As such there's a lot of empty ecospace in Florida,into which escaped exotics simply adapt, without competition from existing species. For example, there is no indigenous constrictor there, because none has evolved from indigenous snakes. Its unsurprising pythons do so well there. 

[longwood50]

3 hours ago, Karolyn said:

escaped exotics

These were for the most parts pets that people wanted no longer and so they thought they would just release them into the everglades. 

Now I don't know what can be done to introduce something into the everglades to be a predator to the pythons.  They have decimated the native population of fox, raccoons, deer etc and recently even taken to eating alligators.