Florida's Snake Problem

[Crowfingers]

I am currently finishing my last class in school and the final project is to write a research proposal on a subject that interests you, and I chose Florida's invasive snake problems. I originally wanted to do a study to find out what the wild population actually is and the impact that the snakes are actually having on the ecosystem by focusing on the 7 federally restricted species. However, I quickly realized that Florida really only cares about Burmese Pythons, and others are given very little attention in the scientific community. I finally figured out why. The number of Burms found/sighted is far more than any other species, with balls coming in second. To the state, only Burms are considered invasive (except for 1 small contained population of Boa constrictors) and all the balls are considered 'escaped' pets.

*I also want to note that I love all animals and am not a fan of the "kill all the snakes that we find" mentality, but I also agree that these species should not be just allowed to populate indefinitely from an ecological point of view - it's just sad that there is no way to find them all homes and it's peoples fault that they are there in the first place.


Anyway, I found this cool link that shows where each animal was found and the circumstances of the sighting if anyone is interested.

http://www.eddmaps.org/florida/snakes.cfm

[Ba11er]

Never realized there was such an epidemic of invasive reptiles in florida. I have only heard about the burns. Hopefully a solution is found to remove these animals

[JodanOrNoDan]

Florida has become the pet dumping ground of the world. I live and work right next to the Everglades and I have been here on and off for around forty years. At any one time I can go outside and in about ten minutes find five species of animals that don't belong here. When you go fishing you are as likely to catch something from the Amazon as you are a native fish. The burms are a huge problem. They are now showing up in people's pools. I hate to say it but there is probably no solution to the burms. They are established at this point. There are documented cases of them eating adult gators and deer. These are not animals you are going to bring home and turn into pets. I love snakes, but if I see one of these running loose down here it is going to get taken care of. Most gators as long as they are not being fed by people have the sense to avoid humans. These burms on the other hand, just like most snakes, are opportunistic feeders. I hate to say it but it would not surprise me one bit if one of these guys takes out a kid.

On a even more alarming note, a couple of Nile crocks were found down here not too long ago. Whoever released those deserves a special warm spot in hell.

[distaff]

VPI has some articles on the topic. Also, HerpNationRadio has an interview somewhere with a guy who goes down there with a permit to catch them. (I think it was that interview...) The conclusion from people that handle them is that they are wild animals again. They aren't your captive bred berms, and they don't make good pets. I think they would be dangerous around kids too.

[Crowfingers]

Never realized there was such an epidemic of invasive reptiles in florida. I have only heard about the burns. Hopefully a solution is found to remove these animals

Yeah, that's why I chose this subject. I was actually amazed that the burms are the only poster child for the invasive reptiles. You hear far less about the tegu and monitor lizards. I also find it a little disturbing that around 5 anacondas have been found yet some of the scientists are saying that this is not worrisome because they must be escaped / released pets since so few are found. In my opinion, the fact that any were found is worrisome, I mean burms will sun themselves by a pool and crawl around in the street, but I was under the impression that in a natural habitat anacondas will stay buried under the floating plants and are not as willing to be around people as the burms (I may be wrong about that though). So just because we can't see them does not mean they aren't there.

[Stewart_Reptiles]

While Peta, USFW and others would love to make people think that the invasive species issue is due to irresponsible pet owners this is NOT the case here.

The Barkers have wrote very good articles about the subject http://vpi.com/publications

So no Florida is not the world dumping ground for pets, no one travels down to Florida to dump their pet because they become too large, the destruction of a facility during an hurricane was the major contributing factor to the issue in Fl. The numbers are also far from reality just like the risk for other area and states have been GREATLY exaggerated by so called scientist.

[distaff]

Yeah, that's why I chose this subject. I was actually amazed that the burms are the only poster child for the invasive reptiles. You hear far less about the tegu and monitor lizards. I also find it a little disturbing that around 5 anacondas have been found yet some of the scientists are saying that this is not worrisome because they must be escaped / released pets since so few are found. In my opinion, the fact that any were found is worrisome, I mean burms will sun themselves by a pool and crawl around in the street, but I was under the impression that in a natural habitat anacondas will stay buried under the floating plants and are not as willing to be around people as the burms (I may be wrong about that though). So just because we can't see them does not mean they aren't there.

Sounds about right on the anacondas. There is another episode on that show that has a scientist who studies them in the anually flooded Venezuelan llanos. Sounds like a big Everglades type wetland, albeit seasonal. He does have to wade in to find them. When he first started out, he relied on the locals to show him how to find them. Much easier and safer to study them there, than in the Amazon. Good interview.

[Crowfingers]

The numbers are also far from reality just like the risk for other area and states have been GREATLY exaggerated by so called scientist.

The lack of proper scientific data on the population size is the precise reason I chose this topic for my research proposal. We had to choose a subject that was interesting for us and in a field where more research is needed. I have read papers putting the population anywhere between 10,000 and 100,000 individual animals, but a real in depth study hasn't been done yet. I also want to correlate the most heavily populated areas with GIS environmental data to model what kind of terrain they might prefer as well as map the spread of the population following the 1995 Hurricane Andrew release and try and 'forecast' how far the population could realistically spread based on the natural history of the snakes themselves.

(Since I don't actually have to convince people to give me money for the study I can make it as in depth as I want too, which is fun for me. The proposal also has to be a minimum of 15 pages, so the more variables I add, the better)

[Willowy]

no one travels down to Florida to dump their pet because they become too large

I've heard people here say they took their pet snake/lizard/whatever tropical animal with them on their Florida vacation to let it go. . .I really have no idea HOW prevalent it is or how many of the captive-raised ones survived but it's definitely not true that "nobody" did it.

[Ba11er]

i would be interested in reading your finished research project. Sharing the information would be beneficial for everyone on responsible ownership and the environmental repercussions of invasive species.