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