[Animals] Florida has a python problem—are bounty hunters the solution?

[7aMoDi]

Thousands of invasive Burmese pythons have ravaged the Sunshine State's native wildlife. Some question if hunting them is the right answer.

NAPLES, FLORIDA“It’s a good night for a python hunt.” The air is thick and soupy. Pythons seem to like stormy, humid air, says professional hunter Amy Siewe, and Hurricane Idalia is about to make landfall in Florida. In about nine hours over two nights, Siewe catches, and kills, four Burmese python hatchlings. She spots them from atop a so-called snake deck—a platform drilled into the bed of her white Ford truck affixed with floodlights. We cruise down highways 29 and 41 in Naples, driving no faster than 25 miles per hour as she looks for snakes in the grass. A blonde with a bright smile, Siewe, 46, left behind a thriving real estate business in Indiana in 2019. On a vacation to Florida earlier that year, she’d gone on a python hunt and was hooked. “This is what I’m supposed to be doing,” she says. She used to work for the state python-hunting program, but it didn’t pay enough to live on. Now, she leads small groups of two to four people on guided hunts for $1,800 a night, teaching civilians how to kill the invasive reptile, which has taken hold throughout much of Florida. Siewe preps me on what to look for: the snakes are mostly motionless, and their eyes don’t shine in the light, but their skin has a plastic sheen. Our best bet is to come across one that’s periscoping, or holding its head high. Siewe shows me a photo on her phone of a python she’d found recently. On the screen, the snake is circled in yellow, but I still have trouble spotting it.

“Python!” she shouts. Dave Roberts, her partner both in life and snake-catching, slams on the brakes and she jumps out. Twisting and squirming, the hatchling struggles in her grasp, its jaws wide open. She holds the snake just behind its head so it can’t bite her. About two feet in length, these hatchlings are nothing compared to the 19-footer she helped catch last year, but she counts this as a victory. It takes a python about 200 prey animals and three years to reach 10 feet in length, Siewe estimates. “Every [python] that we’re taking out is making a difference.” (Read about the largest-ever python found in Florida.) I film the catch with my iPhone camera, but when it’s time to kill the python, Siewe has me turn it off—this part’s not for show. “It’s really unfortunate what we have to do to these pythons,” she says. She’s loved snakes her whole life and has “great respect” for them, she says. “Unfortunately, there’s no option.” Normally she and Roberts use a bolt gun to kill the pythons they catch, but because this one’s so small, Dave uses a pellet gun while she holds the snake steady. The wriggling tail instantly goes still. It’s no secret that Florida has a python problem. Since at least 1979, Burmese pythons have slithered over the southern tip of Florida, including Everglades National Park, gradually expanding their range to nearly a third of the state. The species, native to southeastern Asia, arrived in Florida likely sometime mid-century via the exotic pet trade. It’s now illegal to acquire one as a pet in Florida.

Top picture: Grabbing it behind the head so it won’t bite her, Siewe wrestles the python from the brush on a hunt in August 2023. Pythons aren’t venomous, but their bites are painful—and bloody.

PHOTOGRAPH BY ZACK WITTMAN, THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX

Bottom picture: Mike Kimmel, the self-dubbed “Python Cowboy,” found this three-foot python near Miami in 2020. Catching the smaller snakes is a victory, Siewe says—it’s better to catch them before they’ve grown large by feeding off native wildlife.

 

PHOTOGRAPH BY ALICIA VERA, REDUX

Though Florida is a hot spot for invasive species, pythons are particularly tricky—a January study by the U.S. Geological Survey called them “one of the most intractable invasive-species management issues across the globe.” These snakes thrive in Florida for several reasons—their coloring makes them difficult to spot, they’re often most active at night, and they spend much of their time submerged underwater or hidden in vegetation. The fact that the Everglades are watery and largely uninhabited, as well as cover thousands of miles, only compounds the issue. “They don't really lend themselves to being trapped well,” says Melissa Miller, a University of Florida ecologist working on a python-tracking program. Over the last few decades, these gigantic reptiles have wrought havoc on the state’s ecosystems. The constrictors have decimated native wildlife, including opossums, rabbits, rats, and foxes, with some suffering a decline of up to 99 percent, according to roadside surveys. They’ve swallowed pets, from legions of neighborhood cats to a 60-pound Siberian husky. Scientists keep a running list of the threatened or endangered animals that have been found in python stomachs: state-listed species like the little blue heron, roseate spoonbill, and Big Cypress fox squirrel; federally threatened species like the wood stork; and federally endangered species like the Key Largo woodrat and Key Largo cotton mouse. They compete with other predators, including bobcats, Florida panthers, and native snakes, for prey. And as adults, they have few known predators—basically American alligators and crocodiles, bobcats, other snakes, and potentially Florida panthers, according to the USGS study. (Read more about Florida's panther conservation efforts.) “It’s an emergency situation we’re in,” says Mike Kirkland, senior invasive animal biologist and python elimination program manager for the South Florida Water Management District.

 

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/premium/article/invasive-python-hunts-in-florida