[HN Gopher] One of Florida's most lethal python hunters
___________________________________________________________________
One of Florida's most lethal python hunters
Author : gmays
Score : 85 points
Date : 2024-10-18 04:13 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (gardenandgun.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (gardenandgun.com)
| MrBuddyCasino wrote:
| I wonder why they're not using thermal cameras. Snakes are
| ectothermic, but they still show up:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOL0RocIUI0
| burcs wrote:
| Agreed - it feels like sending drones out the levee access
| roads they mention with thermal cameras would be their best
| bet.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| HN: What problem CAN'T be solved with more technology?
| atourgates wrote:
| I was thinking about technological solutions.
|
| Maybe some combination of cameras (thermal, traditional, maybe
| even Lidar) combining data and processing it to detect at least
| likely pythons.
|
| It wouldn't have to be perfect, but I imagine such a solution
| could be more effective than even the most experienced and
| talented human python spotter.
| MrBuddyCasino wrote:
| Yes a thermal cam on a drone plus maybe a bit of AI could
| save a lot of time.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| If you're paying people < minimum wage on a per piece
| basis, is time the dimension where you should focus?
| munificent wrote:
| Thermal cameras have a fairly narrow FOV. When you're moving at
| (albeit slow) driving speeds and trying to see everything
| around you, trying to look through a thermal camera and scan
| around would probably be too slow and end up costing you more
| time.
|
| Also consider that there are plenty of other native snakes the
| same size as a small python that will show up as a false
| positive on a thermal camera.
| trhway wrote:
| how do we know that the Florida python bounty doesnt repeat the
| Cobra effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive
| burcs wrote:
| I was thinking the same thing. However the article says they
| are only letting in select people and they are getting paid
| close to minimum wage.
|
| I imagine it would not be worth the hassle of breeding and
| releasing pythons, and the character of the people they bring
| in to help is vetted as well.
| Retric wrote:
| It's an hourly wage and the pay isn't high enough to cover
| costs of breeding pythons.
|
| A python can weigh over 200lb. It takes a lot to support a
| snake that big and they monitor sizes to ensure the catch
| matches what you would expect from a wild population.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| _It's an hourly wage and the pay isn't high enough to cover
| costs of breeding pythons._
|
| "Allow me to introduce myself," says the VC.
| culi wrote:
| You have to be licensed/hired for it
| potato3732842 wrote:
| That means there's a licensing department somewhere that
| wouldn't have jobs if the pythons went away completely.
| NikkiA wrote:
| It's usually a part of the local (town, county, state)
| wildlife management department, who are usually overworked
| as it is; and would welcome one job less to do - they'd
| probably love to go back to just being 'the dog catcher'
| like 100 years ago.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| One would hope but you're still relying on the 1-N layers
| of management above that person to not try and hold onto
| the irrelevant workload for fiefdom size reasons. Also
| depends a lot on if the rule writing organization is the
| one actually paying to enforce it.
| munificent wrote:
| It's not a given that the maximally cynical answer is
| always the correct one.
| vvanders wrote:
| This is probably one of many different types of surveys
| and other activities that DNR(or DNR adjacent
| departments) coordinates, it's fairly common to have
| volunteer lead programs like this for surveys or other
| activities. As others mentioned there's no shortage of
| work in understanding and managing a regional ecosystem,
| the people who take these jobs usually care deeply about
| the ecosystems and are not doing the job for financial
| reasons.
|
| Rather than being cynical maybe it would be worth your
| time to consider volunteering and better understanding
| how these things are managed. You might be surprised to
| find it's usually fairly educated folks who care about
| making sure what we have today is around for the next
| generation.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| if you read the article you'll see it's two existing
| departments that are tasked with broader ecological goals.
| If they have perverse incentives licensing snake hunters is
| not one of them.
| spacebanana7 wrote:
| Introducing natural predators for pythons like the king cobra
| might be a more scalable solution. It's very hard to shoot all
| the members of an invasive species.
| trhway wrote:
| I think i read somewhere that people in snake infested areas
| like to have cobras in their villages as cobras prey on smaller
| venomous snakes.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| only if you own a mongoose!
| ceejayoz wrote:
| "No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around,
| the gorillas simply freeze to death."
| slothtrop wrote:
| Soon we'll be trying to telegraph just how much of a cultural
| phenomenon this show was, and come off like Abe.
| razakel wrote:
| I yell at clouds and I'm only in my 30s...
| doubled112 wrote:
| Are you a OneLogin customer? It was a rough week.
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| Had to go rewatch it on Youtube... Thanks for that good
| laugh...
| gacklecackle wrote:
| You know what happened regarding cats as rabbit hunters in
| Australia?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Cane toads, too:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cane_toads_in_Australia
| jprd wrote:
| I learned this lesson as a kid via "Golly Gump Swallowed a
| Fly": https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2807431-golly-
| gump-swall...
| inkcapmushroom wrote:
| Cane Toad Blues, Dave Scott, 2009
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_rb4Gcpp6w
| MezzoDelCammin wrote:
| A wonderful work of late Terry Pratchett comes to mind:
|
| _"We got a bit carried away," said Moist. "We were a bit too
| creative in our thinking. We encouraged mongooses to breed in
| the posting boxes to keep down the snakes..." Lord Vetinari
| said nothing. "Er... which, admittedly, we introduced into the
| letter boxes to reduce the number of toads..." Lord Vetinari
| repeated himself. "Er... which, it's true, staff put in the
| posting boxes to keep down the snails..." Lord Vetinari
| remained unvocal. "Er... These, I must in fairness point out,
| got into the boxes of their own accord, in order to eat the
| glue on the stamps," said Moist, aware that he was beginning to
| burble_
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| The Simpsons did it first:
| https://youtu.be/3f5viRoaZNw?si=YcVu452gEypmYn6Q&t=72
| jgeada wrote:
| Old nursery rhyme precedes them all: https://en.wikipedia.o
| rg/wiki/There_Was_an_Old_Lady_Who_Swal...
| thfuran wrote:
| Actually, I believe it was Australia that did it first.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| I would be very surprised if someone didn't know of an
| ancient world example.
| beretguy wrote:
| I'd prefer honey badgers.
| xyst wrote:
| Great, now FL will have a King Cobra problem :)
| jolt42 wrote:
| King snakes will control other snake populations, but I imagine
| boas not so much.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| so your idea to eliminate this human-caused, unintended problem
| is to double down... with the king cobra? Then maybe some sort
| of cobra-eating gorilla that's allergic to spring breakers and
| dies off?
| soneca wrote:
| Very well written article. Informative, sensible and articulate
| without going that New Yorker style that I find boring.
| gaws wrote:
| > without going that New Yorker style
|
| What is that style, exactly?
| soneca wrote:
| "New Yorker" magazine I mean. Very long-winded, going into
| literary tangents, often giving the impression that
| showcasing the writer's literary skills are more important
| than the subject.
| bbor wrote:
| Great article! That said, the Everglades and its
| web of life as we know it have existed for five thousand years.
| In the comparative blink of an eye, that intricate system has
| been upended.
|
| ...that doesn't sound so bad, when you put it like that. This is
| part of a bigger philosophical stance of mine: maybe the best
| course of action isn't "preserve nature exactly as we found it
| forever"? I definitely see the utility in ridding Florida of
| literal monsters, but in general, some of our fights against
| invasive species just seem... IDK, vain. Brazen. Arrogant. Like,
| they're considering an _owl hunting_ program in the western US to
| protect the slower, shittier owls that already live there. What
| 's the point? Will we have owl hunting season until the sun
| expands? She has been bitten more times than she
| can count; though not venomous, pythons possess rows of curved,
| needle-sharp teeth. .. "Use a floodlight to scan the ground near
| the truck, and look for an iridescence and a pattern... Shout
| 'Python!' if you think you see something, even if you're not
| positive--it's better to be wrong than to miss one."
|
| ...surely drones, night vision, and guns could help solve this
| problem? I understand that snakes can "remain conscious" after
| injury, but _wrestling_ the pythons into a cage so you can
| execute them in your garage seems like a step too far. Maybe I 'm
| underestimating how hard it would be to shoot a snake?
|
| ETA: they do eventually reference "researchers using drones", so
| we're not the only ones to think of that. Not to rejoice in
| anyone losing their job of course, but I do hope that some
| automation makes this more feasible.
| throwup238 wrote:
| _> ...surely drones, night vision, and guns could help solve
| this problem?_
|
| It takes an average of ten hours of searching per snake during
| which time they mostly drive around so I don't think drones are
| a realistic option here due to flight time. There's little
| benefit to searching far beyond the roads/levees because the
| swamp is a very tough terrain to navigate and it gets dangerous
| thanks to the gators.
|
| Can't use (real) night vision googles because any stray light
| from the car could blind the wearer and it would kill the
| driver's peripheral vision making it impractical to drive.
| ksymph wrote:
| A single shot is unlikely to kill, and in these areas a snake
| can very quickly disappear into water or foliage. I doubt
| drones or night vision would help much for similar reasons -
| the issue lies as much in being able to reach the snakes as it
| does in being able to locate them. The Everglades are
| incredibly thick, a snake will easily outpace and hide from a
| human outside of roads. It does seem like there should be a
| better way than wrestling them but it's hard to say what that
| might be.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > A single shot is unlikely to kill
|
| That's why they make guns that can load more than one bullet
| at a time. Also, maybe use a higher caliber bullet. Lot's of
| asinine pro-gun enthusiastic responses available for Florida
| man to retort with.
| t-3 wrote:
| Python heads aren't exactly large and they are nocturnal.
| If it were easiest to just shoot them dead, that's exactly
| what they would be doing.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| Gee thanks for explaining that for us all. Now I'd like to
| see you hit a fist-sized, moving target in the middle of
| the night, in the rain from the top of a pickup truck.
| chasd00 wrote:
| Shooting a snake in the head is pretty easy. Usually when
| you find one, it's still in the water. Then you just
| follow the body around to the head. I use to do this all
| the time as a kid in the country hunting water snakes
| with a .22 rifle and scope.
| t-3 wrote:
| > "preserve nature exactly as we found it forever"
|
| It's not even "as we found it", it's "as it was at a certain
| arbitrary point in time". I've seen zero proposals to eliminate
| earthworms, honeybees, or dandelions from the Americas.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| I'm fine with removing dandelions but good luck.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| Controlling invasive species is not just some sentimental thing
| about preserving the purity of nature. Invasive species can
| massively destabilize an ecosystem- wiping out huge numbers of
| other species, and destroying natural resources humans depend
| on for economic livelihood. It is hard to predict the severity
| of the end point, so best to head it off as aggressively and
| early as possible.
| nradov wrote:
| I'm not necessarily opposed to eradicating invasive species,
| but natural ecosystems are seldom stable. Populations boom
| and crash all the time for other reasons.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| That sounds to me like saying "there's no reason to put out
| this kitchen fire I accidentally started in my house, since
| lighting sometimes starts fires naturally."
|
| Natural ecological events can certainly be difficult for
| humans to deal with, and even cause mass famine, etc. - but
| we have many more recent cases of ecological catastrophe
| caused by humans.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| factors causing immediate collapse are both extremely rare
| and tend to be uneven across species. These snakes have no
| natural enemies in Florida
| hinkley wrote:
| Dave Attel's Insomniac goes to New Orleans. Surprisingly they
| don't go with the nightlife, but he hangs out with a SWAT team
| sniper who practices by sitting in a pickup bed sniping nutria
| in the canals. Probably doesn't work as well in the Everglades
| though.
| psalzzz wrote:
| FWC, the Universities, and the Water Management districts are
| testing out a lot of methods --- including drones armed with an
| AI-based imaging system to identify the snakes & eventually
| eliminate. Given they're cold blooded you need to have visual
| confirmation - finding heat signatures isn't easy. FWC also has
| a truck outfitted with LIDAR to detect them. My family and I
| drove around in their trucks with FWC and WM earlier this year
| hunting them and learning what can be done to try and help
| solve this issue.
|
| The snakes are captured & bagged, then they are humanely
| eliminated using a bolt gun to the brain. The brain is then
| completely destroyed using a metal rod to ensure there's no
| more activity.
| dmonitor wrote:
| So when can we start writing articles glazing the US's most
| lethal cat hunters? They're an invasive species in most states
| and kill billions of native birds every year.
| throwup238 wrote:
| When you find enough suicidal people to establish "cat hunter"
| as a profession and they survive long enough to make it a
| competition.
|
| Every cat lover with a gun would be out hunting them back.
| justin66 wrote:
| The parent comment was created by dog people attempting to
| move the Overton window.
| MOARDONGZPLZ wrote:
| Well first, I think there would need to be cat hunters. I don't
| think there are.
|
| Second, we've decided as a society that a particular set of
| animals are ones we love and protect. Dogs, cats, horses, etc.
| So it's very unlikely any hunter of this class of animal would
| be palatable to our society. Maybe in another country where
| they don't view this class of animal in the same way.
|
| Third, I am totally in agreement that cats kill so many birds
| every year. We keep our cat indoors for this reason.
| lupusreal wrote:
| It might just be an urban legend, but I have heard that some
| American soldiers sent to Afghanistan were told that shooting
| stray dogs would help their reputation with locals. I think
| rabies is a prevalent problem in that part of the world, so
| it seems plausible.
| dosinga wrote:
| https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7076733/Catman-Kang...
| atourgates wrote:
| I mean - we do sort of. We just TNR them (trap, neuter,
| release), because we don't have much appetite to euthanize
| fuzzy cute animals we see as pets.
|
| Sadly, it looks like the program is struggling to find funding:
| https://www.kare11.com/article/news/local/breaking-the-news/...
| culi wrote:
| One of the most effective techniques we use for mosquito
| population control is to actually breed infertile mosquitoes
| and release them out in the wild. When mosquitoes breed they
| will end up laying infertile eggs
|
| I wonder if we could do the same with other species or if the
| destructiveness pythons exhibit in their much longer
| lifespans makes this equation work out very differently
| xyst wrote:
| If responsible cat owners wouldn't let them out of the house,
| then this wouldn't be a problem
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| The thing with cats is that people _think_ they have a cat
| problem when in fact they have a rodent problem that the cats
| keep in check.
|
| Then they go, eradicate the cats, and wonder where the rats and
| mice come from. It's called the "mesopredator problem" in
| ecology, and it's a massive issue when you want to restore
| ocean islands for birds.
| trhway wrote:
| >kill billions of native birds every year.
|
| what is wrong with killing billions of ill and old birds? That
| is how Nature works, and the other predators do it in the non-
| developed areas where humans didn't push out those predators
| from. In the developed areas the other predators are gone, so
| thanks to the cats who do the necessary job of all those
| missing predators.
|
| >They're an invasive species in most states
|
| Do you see many native predators around humans? If anything the
| humans is the invasive species doing pretty much all the
| damage.
| tejtm wrote:
| Cats were not domesticated, they opted to coexist with a overly
| invasive species and have been doing pretty okay because of
| that, perhaps advocates of felinocide would be interested in
| joining VHEMT to address the root of what bothers them.
| cyberax wrote:
| > They're an invasive species in most states and kill billions
| of native birds every year.
|
| That's fine. Humans exterminated most of the native felines on
| the North American continent, so we're just re-introducing some
| of them.
| swayvil wrote:
| So I was in the drainage ditch having a bit of opossum when this
| old lady rolls up in a blinged-out pickup and starts taking
| selfies.
| mminer237 wrote:
| This might be a bit gruesome, but why not shoot the snakes the on
| site? That seems way easier and faster than physically wrestling
| dangerous snakes sometimes bigger than yourself, throwing them in
| your truck, and shooting them in your garage. Is it just the
| solemnity? The chance of missing and it escaping and the
| difficulty of wrestling with a gun?
| kkielhofner wrote:
| They get paid per verified kill:
|
| https://www.sfwmd.gov/our-work/python-program
|
| No idea how it actually works but shooting them where they are
| has to be tough to verify.
| thfuran wrote:
| It has to be easier to get a dead python into your truck than
| a live one, right?
| beretguy wrote:
| Yeah, that makes total sense, but we are talking about
| Florida.
| xyst wrote:
| You assume you are able to kill a python in one shot. If
| you don't get the "kill" shot, your prey runs off into the
| woods and now you spend time tracking its blood and steps.
|
| Then you ignore the noise factor which can scare off other
| pythons in the area.
| kortex wrote:
| I have never tried to shoot a snake but I imagine their
| high aspect ratio makes getting a critical hit on them
| challenging, compared to just "yoinking" them.
|
| Garret Galvin @fishingarrett has made a name for himself
| yoinking all sorts of critters in the wild but in
| particular seems to be targeting invasive pythons in the
| Everglades. He's very entertaining if you like nature
| stuff, he's like Steve Irwin's spiritual successor.
| munificent wrote:
| Once you bag a snake, they're pretty easy to move around.
| Getting them into a sack isn't as hard as you might imagine
| either. Obviously, it's going to be more difficult for a
| larger snake, but it's way easier than getting, say, a cat
| into a cat carrier.
| goostavos wrote:
| I know nothing about snake hunting other than the 3
| youtube videos I just watched
| (https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5JB_bzQwtZ8), but this
| professional sure makes getting them into the sack is
| about as hard and dangerous as I would imagine. Seems
| like you're one slip up from getting a chunk of your body
| removed (like that dude in the youtube video's arm).
| chasd00 wrote:
| Wrestling snakes is good for likes/subscribes. A .22
| handgun is probably what is used when not filming.
| themaninthedark wrote:
| I don't know, I just get the cat to climb into the
| carrier on it's own.
|
| You have to make the carrier a mundane part of the cat's
| life. Leave it out randomly so the cat isn't associating
| it with unpleasantness, put snacks in it. Then it won't
| be an object that brings fear and anger.
| onlypassingthru wrote:
| How big is the head? Machete FTW.
| psalzzz wrote:
| You can't shoot them. You must kill them by the guidelines
| from FWC. You're not allowed to run around with guns and
| shoot at the animals.
| turbonaut wrote:
| Particularly with snakes...
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Wikipedia says the snakes lay between 12-36 eggs, are
| capable of asexual reproduction when without a mate, and
| can reach over 2m in length within a year. Seems like a
| bunch of characteristics which would make farming them a
| straightforward affair. Less certain about the diet of
| feeding a clutch of snakes, but really seems like a
| business opportunity for the entrepreneur.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| I wonder why this has not been abused like with the cobra
| effect.
| chasil wrote:
| I think a gene drive will be cheaper than all of this manual
| labor.
|
| Release a male python that can only sire male pythons, and
| population collapse is inevitable.
|
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6083257/
| gweinberg wrote:
| I don't think that can work. Reptiles don't have X and Y
| chromosomes.
| throwup238 wrote:
| Neither do _Aedes aegypti_ mosquitos which was probably the
| first application of the gene drive. It works in species
| with homomorphic sex chromosomes just fine.
| projektfu wrote:
| Pythons might.
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S09609822
| 1...
| xyst wrote:
| My guess is the noise factor even if you consider a suppressor.
| Sure, you kill 1 python snake. But scare off a half dozen in
| the near area.
|
| Who knows, maybe the gun fire attracts other predators in the
| glades (alligators?).
| TylerE wrote:
| Incorrect. Snakes have very minimal hearing. A bit in the
| lower frequencies, but we're mostly talking about vibrations
| picked up from the ground... they don't have external ear
| canals.
| julianeon wrote:
| I imagine you'd end up with lots of leaded bullets in the
| water, over time. Naturally lead + water = bad.
|
| Note: I know about this because there's a gun range near where
| I live by the lake, and the lake is now permanently off limits
| for swimming due to lead pollution.
| ultimafan wrote:
| California law prevents hunting with lead bullets for this
| same reason. There's alternatives on the market for bullets
| made out of other non toxic or non polluting metals. I
| imagine they could do something similar there.
| ineedaj0b wrote:
| shooting things in the everglades is tough. it's swamp land. i
| think there's a decent amount of lead in bullets
| aranchelk wrote:
| > the Everglades and its web of life as we know it have existed
| for five thousand years.
|
| Typo? Creationism? That seems like a very short period of time.
| neerajk wrote:
| Thats when the sea receded, so its "only" 5,000 years old after
| all.
| gs17 wrote:
| https://www.everglades.org/early-formation/ >Only about 5000
| years ago did South Florida's climate take on its current sub-
| tropical and monsoonal character of dry winters followed by hot
| moist summers with large amounts of rain (on average 50-60
| inches per year), as seas that surround it on three sides warm
| and evaporate.
| culi wrote:
| The Amazon rainforest itself is also not that much older than
| 10k years. In fact, there's some evidence that humans played a
| major role in its transition from grassland to jungle
| potato3732842 wrote:
| The unique ecosystems and their locations around the world are
| a direct consequence of the oceans and weather. The oceans and
| weather were wildly different during the last ice age and
| consequently the ecosystem present in many places was wildly
| different than it is today.
|
| Even only going back a couple thousand years the changes have
| been huge (desertification in the ME and North Africa).
| spankalee wrote:
| What's the point? The pythons are there now, and there's no way
| to capture them all.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| biodiversity == resilience. If we let the planet turn into a
| near-monoculture of kudzu and cockroaches (or whatever the
| stable equilibrium might look like), we die. If we wait to act
| until the web of relationships is simple enough that we can
| predict the particular nature of that death, it seems likely
| that it'll be too late.
|
| This does seem like a doomed-to-fail stopgap kind of solution,
| but sometimes stopgaps are all you've got.
| munificent wrote:
| From the article:
|
| _So far, the data suggests that native wildlife is responding
| in the areas the contractors patrol; though they might not be
| surging back, mammals and birds are finding the toehold they
| need to survive. While no one believes the pythons will ever be
| fully eradicated, Kirkland is hopeful that in twenty years,
| native wildlife might have regained more than a toehold, and
| the issue might lessen into something close to manageable._
| rietta wrote:
| Here is an official Florida government source on the humane
| methods for killing a python.
| https://myfwc.com/wildlifehabitats/nonnatives/python/humane-...
|
| - Your method should result in the animal losing consciousness
| immediately.
|
| - You should then destroy the animal's brain by "pithing" which
| prevents the animal from regaining consciousness.
|
| Looking at the diagram, the head is very small in comparison to
| the entire body. Perhaps that is why shooting is discouraged. I
| cannot find a source that states that shooting is illegal. There
| are limitations on where pythons can be hunted, which is on
| private land with permission or some public lands. That is mostly
| going to be a safety and private property protection purposes.
|
| The website states "Members of the public may not transport
| pythons alive and must humanely kill pythons at the capture
| location. However, python skins or meat may be kept and/or sold."
| nanolith wrote:
| Shooting invasive species is definitely legal in Florida
| assuming that you have permission of the land owner or are
| otherwise in a location where shooting is allowed (i.e. not in
| a municipality that bans the gunfire). It has to be done
| humanely: if you hit the invasive animal, you are responsible
| for dispatching it as quickly as possible. If you don't
| dispatch the animal, you can easily run foul of animal cruelty
| laws here.
|
| I have been hoping for a health improvement so I can go on a
| guided python hunt. I have read up on it quite a bit. Not only
| can I get python leather to make a nice wallet, belt, and a
| pair of boots, but I can do so while doing a small part to curb
| an invasive species that is wrecking havoc on the ecosystem in
| South Florida.
| rietta wrote:
| I hope your health does improve and you get to go on your
| hunt! Sounds like a good thing to plan for. Leathermaking is
| a good use too considering the unsafe mercury levels found in
| the Python meat.
| TechDebtDevin wrote:
| I say we just give Florida back to Spain and call it a day.
| nojvek wrote:
| I don't think Spain can handle Florida anymore.
| hinkley wrote:
| Should we be capturing the large ones, sterilizing them and
| rereleasing like we do for cats?
|
| I wonder how you tag a python as spayed though. No ears.
| psalzzz wrote:
| No, they should be eliminated immediately. Finding a living
| mammal in the everglades is becoming rare with these snakes
| destroying the ecosystem. I spent several days hunting for
| Pythons earlier this year and didn't see even a single deer or
| rabbit.
| MikeKusold wrote:
| We shouldn't even be doing that for cats.
|
| Domestic cats are an invasive species that decimate the native
| wildlife. "free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.3-4.0 billion
| birds and 6.3-22.3 billion mammals annually."[0]
|
| Since we're talking about Florida, this is what their Fish &
| Game department has to say on the topic:
|
| > * Domestic cats are not a part of Florida's natural
| ecosystem. A single individual free-ranging cat may kill 100 or
| more birds and mammals per year. Scientists in Wisconsin
| estimate that cats kill at least 7.8 million birds per year in
| that state alone. Even cats with bells on their collars kill or
| injure birds and small mammals.
|
| > * Cats compete with native wildlife and can spread disease.
| Outdoor cats have been identified as the primary host in the
| transmission of toxoplasmosis to wildlife, a disease which has
| caused death in manatees and other mammals.
|
| [0]: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380 [1]:
| https://myfwc.com/wildlifehabitats/nonnatives/feral-cats/
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| What would that accomplish? They'd just kill more native fauna
| until they die, and it would be incredibly expensive. Plus,
| what program "captures, sterilizes and releases cats", which
| are not wild animals to begin with?
| 1234letshaveatw wrote:
| She ain't got nothing on the Python Cowboy
| https://www.youtube.com/@PythonCowboy
| AlexandrB wrote:
| There's also this guy:
| https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5JB_bzQwtZ8
|
| I don't know how his numbers stack up, but he's amusing to
| watch.
| mhb wrote:
| I wonder if there's a way to attract them.
| charlangas wrote:
| As a snake keeper, I imagine the best way to attract them would
| be with food (i.e. rats), but then you run the risk of also
| attracting other native predators as well.
|
| But to build on your idea, a trap that a python can enter but
| not exit without human assistance could be interesting. You can
| check the traps periodically and free any native wildlife that
| happens to enter them.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Very interesting, and a welcome alternative to the tech-focused
| stuff that dominates here. Thanks for posting.
| kleton wrote:
| What if they released honey badgers in Florida? Not saying
| they're any more native than the pythons, but at least they have
| personality.
| syngrog66 wrote:
| wrong type of python for HN
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