Florida's Snake Problem

[Crowfingers]

Crow - so cool that you chose this for your project, by the sounds of it you will do very well with it. I have always been interested in this as well and figured it would spark some controversy on the forum. As a Canadian, Florida has always seemed so beautiful and yet so dangerous! It amazes me how many creatures that could kill you live in one place but people might say the same for the bears and cougars in BC. Jo thanks for sharing your insight as a person that lives there. Do they cull the berms? Is it so bad that they can not be stopped?

Thanks, I'm learning a ton and would love to potentially pursue a job in the Everglades as a park education officer so I could teach people about the beauty of these animals as pets and that they get a bad wrap - while still explaining why they don't belong in the wild.

And unfortunately they do kill the Burms. They actually have a yearly 'round up' where people that are skilled hunters / can recognize a snake are given a license to hunt and kill them. So far this is only for Burms, but some people can get a license to kill all 'species of concern' (not just reptiles - there is a whole list on the FWC website).

From the reports, the second highest snake found in the 'wild' are ball pythons - mainly in populated areas. Some are even morphs...so either pets that got out on their own or pets that were let go (here's that link https://www.eddmaps.org/distribution/List.cfm?sub=22787 ), they have only been reported since 2008. You can click on each individual finding and read where they were found and the circumstances. At least with most of the balls it looks like they try and adopt them out if they are found alive. Most are normals, but there are some that are described as 'fancy' color. Some are healthy, there is at least one report of a gravid female that had been hit by a car, some are skinny, but all and all there are 200 found ball pythons spread all over Florida. So their is either a ton of irresponsible owners (whether through intentional release or from having cages the snakes can get out of) or there are enough balls in those areas that they are breeding.

So far all ball pythons are considered by the state as released / lost pets so they are not being killed like burms, but they might not ever get to the 'hunted' status since they are not viewed as dangerous like the larger snakes and monitors.