Pythons in Florida, and how they got there.

There are thousands of them all over Florida. Why? Well, because of these reasons:
1- The owner who purchased the snake was NOT informed on this species.
2- The owner did not want to care for a large snake.
3- The snake got out of it's enclosure which was not properly secured.

The third one is the reason why this python ban is active. The man who owned the snake did not have an enclosure that was secured properly, so his snake ended up killing a 2 year old. All because of one person's fault, we all pay for it. Now, there are pythons that cannot even get close to killing a person. The smaller pythons (Ball pythons, Children's pythons, Spotted pythons, Stimson's pythons, etc.) that grow under 6 feet are the most unlikely to kill or even have the intension to kill a person. Though, it would not be smart to put a 6 foot python over a toddler/child's neck. The larger pythons do mistake people for food, but it's not their fault. It's their instinct. They are born to kill and are born to be predators. Any snake can mistake your hands/fingers for food, but not on purpose. Any snake should be properly secured in an enclosure, no matter how small or how large.

People who are not informed on the snake they purchased are most likely to have a snake escape. People may buy the snake because it looks cool, or they just want to have a snake to show off. So, when a person purchases a Burmese python, or any other large constrictor, and does not know how large it's going to get, when that snake gets over 6 feet the person lets the snake go because that person did not want to care for a large snake. Now, that's the connection between the first and second reason I listed.

When a person does not want to care for a snake no more, they will let it go thinking it will do better out in the wild. Now, there are two things that can happen: the snake either dies, or adapts to the new environment and begins to breed with more of it's kind that have been released. Snakes, like many other animals, can adapt to new environment and gets used to the changes. That's what happened with the pythons in Florida, and now their breeding and eating anything they can, reducing the population of most animal species that are native to the area they are in. Little did the person know that the snake could easily be given away at a rescue or sold online. If you didn't want to care for a snake, the best to do is give it to a rescue or sell/give away online. That way you KNOW the snake is being given the correct care and is in the care of someone who wants it.

When you don't have a secure cage, that means that it is so easy for your snake to escape. Snakes are escape artists, and can escape through a whole that you can't even think it was possible for them to do so. This is why when you do your research you know how to keep the enclosure secure so your snake does not escape. Now, those inexperienced python owners in Florida that had their pythons escape are now a part of the python population in Florida just because the snake did not have a secure enclosure. And when your large python gets out, that poses a threat to people and animals in that area.

I believe if more people were informed BEFORE purchasing a snake, it would be less likely for the snake to escape, and the snake gets the correct care it needs. If the people who purchased the pythons in Florida (that let theirs go and didn't want to care for it or their snake got out) were more informed on that species and KNEW it would get about 20 feet long, there wouldn't be very many pythons in Florida posing threats to native species and people and most of the people would probably never have purchased the snake in the first place. Everyone, let's just hope and cross our fingers that this bill does not pass. The Burmese pythons are a part of the snake-owning hobby, as well as all of the other pythons. Snake-owning would NEVER be the same if pythons were banned. It's a responsibility to take proper care of the snake, and when you don't, this mess happens.

There is strong evidence that hurricane andrew has much to do with the burms presence in the everglades.

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Originally Posted by mainbutter

There is strong evidence that hurricane andrew has much to do with the burms presence in the everglades.

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I would imagine so. Houses becoming wrecked, things breaking inside of the houses.. I bet that would definitely be a cause, but maybe a very little cause. I think it's more of the people letting the snake go because they are too large.

The timeline for burms showing up in the 'glades fits, there are known records of burms getting free due to hurricane andrew, and anyone who releases a snake into the wild is neglectful, and anyone neglectful isn't going to drive all the way to the everlades just to release a snake.

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Originally Posted by mainbutter

The timeline for burms showing up in the 'glades fits, there are known records of burms getting free due to hurricane andrew, and anyone who releases a snake into the wild is neglectful, and anyone neglectful isn't going to drive all the way to the everlades just to release a snake.

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I've heard of so many people releasing their snakes. And I'm not saying the people had to drive all the way to the glades, I'm saying they probably just released the snake a few feet away from the house, or maybe somewhere out of their neighborhood (if they live in one).

i live in miami, about 10 min away from the glades and i have seen many burms in the glades....but i do agree andrew did affect the amount of burms out there

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Originally Posted by luna13

i live in miami, about 10 min away from the glades and i have seen many burms in the glades....but i do agree andrew did affect the amount of burms out there

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Now that I think about it, that's most likely so. Probably a majority of them escaped and went there during the hurricane. But the other small amount is release or escaping.

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Originally Posted by CoolioTiffany

Now that I think about it, that's most likely so. Probably a majority of them escaped and went there during the hurricane. But the other small amount is release or escaping.

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this is true i my self have heard of people driving out there to let them go, a few years back i took in burms from kids at my school who were gonna dump them

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Originally Posted by CoolioTiffany

Now that I think about it, that's most likely so. Probably a majority of them escaped and went there during the hurricane. But the other small amount is release or escaping.

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Not to mention all the pet shops that carry little baby burms that got blown away. From what I've heard there was a herp store or an importer or something right outside the glades and it got completely demolished during hurricane andrew and now a lot of the burms down there can be linked back to the orginal snakes that escaped that place during the hurricane.

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Originally Posted by Brewster320

Not to mention all the pet shops that carry little baby burms that got blown away. From what I've heard there was a herp store or an importer or something right outside the glades and it got completely demolished during hurricane andrew and now a lot of the burms down there can be linked back to the orginal snakes that escaped that place during the hurricane.

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this is true, but believe there are many people out here that will drive to the glades just to dump them

Tiffany while I understand you mean well, I think this is just one of those time again where you write about subject you are not very familiar with.

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Originally Posted by CoolioTiffany

There are thousands of them all over Florida. Why? Well, because of these reasons:

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First they are not all over Florida as you seem to believe.

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1- The owner who purchased the snake was NOT informed on this species.
2- The owner did not want to care for a large snake.
3- The snake got out of it's enclosure which was not properly secured.

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See below

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Are the Burmese pythons in South Florida pets that were released by irresponsible pet owners?
During the 22-year period from the first sighting in 1979 through 2000, a total of 8 pythons were collected in the area of the park; four others were observed. It’s certainly possible that those few snakes might have been escaped or released pets.

Twelve snakes in 22 years is an average of about one snake every other year.

Considering that the Miami metropolitan area has a population of millions of people, is one of the two main ports of entry in the USA for imported exotic reptiles, has more exotic animal dealers and distributors than any other city, that keeping reptiles is particularly popular in South Florida, and that all of this is right next door to ENP, it certainly seems possible that a half-dozen snakes every decade could have ended up in the wilds of South Florida.

However, from 2001 to the present, more than 900 Burmese pythons have been collected and observed in South Florida. Anyone implying that this increase in the combined 75 years of experience in the snake community, it is our observation that it is a rare event for an exotic snake to be released.

Another reason is that any pet owner who did release a python would release a large snake that had outgrown its circumstances,
not a baby. Older captive-raised snakes generally do not survive long when released. It’s probably because they haven’t learned what is necessary to avoid trouble and they don’t know the area.

Large size is a terrible liability to any snake in the best of cases, and a released large, captive raised snake rarely is able to prosper. It is baby snakes that are the colonizers—and it’s hard to imagine who would purposely release baby snakes. It’s the baby pythons that have the most value to the wholesalers and distributors.

Other evidence that the wild pythons are not descended from captive populations is that Burmese pythons with unusual color and pattern mutations have not been recovered from the wilds of South Florida—all of the pythons have been normal. These days it’s difficult to purchase a captive-bred Burmese python that is not an unusual color morph or heterozygous for some unusual color or pattern mutation. [Watch, now that this has been publicly stated, probably a whole string of albino Burmese pythons will
show up].

A significant consideration is that the genetic study funded by SFWMD demonstrated that the Burmese python population in the Everglades was not descended from the Burmese pythons imported from Vietnam. They did not demonstrate from where the snakes actually came, just that they weren’t from Vietnam.

This is an important finding in the determination of the source of the Florida pythons. Vietnam has been essentially the sole source for imported baby Burmese pythons since 1994. So the Burmese pythons that founded the present population were almost certainly baby Burmese pythons imported before 1994. There just happens to be that exact combination of factors.

Based on all these clues, including the chronology of the recent python population boom in ENP, we propose that the growing population of Burmese pythons is descended from juvenile pythons released into the Everglades along with almost every other surviving animal when Hurricane Andrew devastated South Florida in August of 1992.

It was the worst hurricane in the history of an area famous for hurricanes. The storm hit South Florida from the east, the eye went through the middle of ENP, and the hardest winds were north of Florida City blowing to the west with gusts over 150 mph, straight into ENP. Immediately afterwards, South Florida looked as if it had been carpet-bombed.

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The entire article (which I encourage you to read) written by Dave Barker can be found here http://vpi.com/sites/vpi.com/files/O...compressed.pdf

Excellent article Deborah. I was going to mention something about OP's misunderstanding of the situation, but the article does a far better job than I could ever imagine to.