The Conservancy of Southwest Florida shared during a news conference in June that its python team, led by biologist and program manager Ian Bartoszek, removed a record 8,000 pounds of the invasive snake from the wilds of Collier County in the past year.
Much of what the Conservancy’s python team does is documented in various ways, including videos.
One video that stands out from the field work conducted earlier this year provides an excellent example of how biologists like Bartoszek and Ian Easterling are tracking and finding pythons, which are wreaking havoc with the ecosystem in the Elvergaldes.
In this case, their work led to the discovery of an extra-large, 16-foot, 135-pound snake.
‘Python. Big python’
At the beginning of the 28-second video, the narrator says:
“Walking in on a scout track … Ian Easterling yelled, ‘Python. Big python.'”
From that point until the end of the video you see the camera pan along the snake, found in some deep brush, with its head in the clutches of one of the members of the Conservancy’s python team.
According to a report from the Conservancy, this python was a female and it was found “basking along a trail while tracking scout snake No. 57 − Charlie.”
The Conservancy said this capture occurred fairly far from the scout snake’s actual location and was madepossible through careful observation in the field.
“The python team would likely have found the female python with Charlie later in the season, but locating females earlier increases opportunities to identify additional targets,” the Conservancy said. “Charlie did just that a few weeks later, leading researchers to another female and two males near this capture location.”
What’s a python scout snake?
Scout snakes are pythons that have been captured by the Conservancy’s python team. They are kept alive and marked or tagged in a way so python hunters do not kill them. The Conservancy team uses other male scout snakes to find the breeding females. They use male snakes surgically fitted with radio transmitters and then track them to find where the females are hiding.
What do Burmese pythons do to Florida? Invasive snake’s impact
Burmese pythons have wrought destruction in the Florida Everglades. They’ve contributed to the decline of small mammals including raccoons, opossums, bobcats, foxes, marsh rabbits and cottontail rabbits, according to a 2012 study.
A recent study revealed that Burmese pythons can eat prey much larger than previously reported. Scientists observed a Burmese python swallowing a 77-pound white-tailed deer, nearly 70 percent of the snake’s mass.
The non-native snakes have proliferated across more than a thousand square miles of South Florida.by the USGS put the Burmese python population in the Florida Everglades region in the tens of thousands.
Mark H. Bickel is the Audience Development Director for the Naples Daily News and The News-Press in Fort Myers, Florida.
This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: ‘Big python’. Florida biologists find extra large snake in Everglades
Reporting by Mark H. Bickel, Fort Myers News-Press & Naples Daily News / Naples Daily News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Mark H. Bickel, Fort Myers News-Press & Naples Daily News | USA TODAY Network
