111–120 of 161 posts
So when can we start writing articles glazing the US's most lethal cat hunters? They're an invasive species in most states and kill billions of native birds every year.
That's fine. Humans exterminated most of the native felines on the North American continent, so we're just re-introducing some of them.
Here is an official Florida government source on the humane methods for killing a python. https://myfwc.com/wildlifehabitats/nonnatives/python/humane-... - Your method should result in the animal losing consciousness immediately. - You should then destroy the animal's brain by “pithing” which prevents the animal from regaining consciousness. Looking at the diagram, the head is very small in comparison to the entire b…
Shooting invasive species is definitely legal in Florida assuming that you have permission of the land owner or are otherwise in a location where shooting is allowed (i.e. not in a municipality that bans the gunfire). It has to be done humanely: if you hit the invasive animal, you are responsible for dispatching it as quickly as possible. If you don't dispatch the animal, you can easily run foul of animal cruelty law…
This might be a bit gruesome, but why not shoot the snakes the on site? That seems way easier and faster than physically wrestling dangerous snakes sometimes bigger than yourself, throwing them in your truck, and shooting them in your garage. Is it just the solemnity? The chance of missing and it escaping and the difficulty of wrestling with a gun?
They get paid per verified kill: https://www.sfwmd.gov/our-work/python-program No idea how it actually works but shooting them where they are has to be tough to verify.
Should we be capturing the large ones, sterilizing them and rereleasing like we do for cats? I wonder how you tag a python as spayed though. No ears.
Introducing natural predators for pythons like the king cobra might be a more scalable solution. It’s very hard to shoot all the members of an invasive species.
Introducing natural predators for pythons like the king cobra might be a more scalable solution. It’s very hard to shoot all the members of an invasive species.
I think i read somewhere that people in snake infested areas like to have cobras in their villages as cobras prey on smaller venomous snakes.
I wonder why they're not using thermal cameras. Snakes are ectothermic, but they still show up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOL0RocIUI0
Agreed – it feels like sending drones out the levee access roads they mention with thermal cameras would be their best bet.
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I was thinking about technological solutions. Maybe some combination of cameras (thermal, traditional, maybe even Lidar) combining data and processing it to detect at least likely pythons. It wouldn't have to be perfect, but I imagine such a solution could be more effective than even the most experienced and talented human python spotter.
Yes a thermal cam on a drone plus maybe a bit of AI could save a lot of time.
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You have to be licensed/hired for it
That means there's a licensing department somewhere that wouldn't have jobs if the pythons went away completely.
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Controlling invasive species is not just some sentimental thing about preserving the purity of nature. Invasive species can massively destabilize an ecosystem- wiping out huge numbers of other species, and destroying natural resources humans depend on for economic livelihood. It is hard to predict the severity of the end point, so best to head it off as aggressively and early as possible.
I'm not necessarily opposed to eradicating invasive species, but natural ecosystems are seldom stable. Populations boom and crash all the time for other reasons.