I'm in south florida and I've been out many times to search for whatever herps I could find. Not only have I never seen a python in the wild here, but I also don't think they are a problem. Let me put it this way: the harmless green iguanas are now seen and excepted as an introduced species that will always remain. Their only threat is dogs and the occasional below 60* cold fronts. There are a few immigrants who will eat the iguanas but that's only when it gets so cold that the damn things fall out of trees. Why are pythons any different? Because "snakes are too spooky"? Is it because a few were found eating alligators? Most of the people (not the ones who actually care and know what they are doing for Floridas "natural" environments) who want take part in hunting these snakes really just want to kill an animal and would kill alligators if they were "the problem." The only invasives I can find a problem with are fish (snakeheads will wreck everything in a matter of weeks) and several plants but that's because I can't fish without catching a snakehead or a bushel of aquatic plants that were not here 10 years ago. The Cuban knight anoles are about the meanest thing I've encountered aside from snakeheads, but the difference is no one is doing anything about the knight anoles - which I've observed destroying smaller lizards.
Point is the pythons are harmless. The invasives pretty much belong because almost anything can live here and thrive. But that is here, in Florida. Not in any other state. Florida is the only place that these snakes could live. Other states it would require one winter and boom, they're all gone. You don't think horrible owners have released their snakes in northern states? I course that's happened, it's just that the snake would have died quickly!
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