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.
King snakes will control other snake populations, but I imagine boas not so much.
One of Florida's most lethal python hunters
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Re: One of Florida's most lethal python hunters
#92She ain't got nothing on the Python Cowboy https://www.youtube.com/@PythonCowboy
There's also this guy: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5JB_bzQwtZ8
I don't know how his numbers stack up, but he's amusing to watch.
Re: One of Florida's most lethal python hunters
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
It has to be easier to get a dead python into your truck than a live one, right?
Once you bag a snake, they're pretty easy to move around. Getting them into a sack isn't as hard as you might imagine either. Obviously, it's going to be more difficult for a larger snake, but it's way easier than getting, say, a cat into a cat carrier.
Re: One of Florida's most lethal python hunters
#94I wonder why they're not using thermal cameras. Snakes are ectothermic, but they still show up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOL0RocIUI0
Thermal cameras have a fairly narrow FOV. When you're moving at (albeit slow) driving speeds and trying to see everything around you, trying to look through a thermal camera and scan around would probably be too slow and end up costing you more time.
Also consider that there are plenty of other native snakes the same size as a small python that will show up as a false positive on a thermal camera.
Re: One of Florida's most lethal python hunters
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's usually a part of the local (town, county, state) wildlife management department, who are usually overworked as it is; and would welcome one job less to do - they'd probably love to go back to just being 'the dog catcher' like 100 years ago.
One would hope but you're still relying on the 1-N layers of management above that person to not try and hold onto the irrelevant workload for fiefdom size reasons. Also depends a lot on if the rule writing organization is the one actually paying to enforce it.
It's not a given that the maximally cynical answer is always the correct one.
Re: One of Florida's most lethal python hunters
#96Should 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.
No, they should be eliminated immediately. Finding a living mammal in the everglades is becoming rare with these snakes destroying the ecosystem. I spent several days hunting for Pythons earlier this year and didn't see even a single deer or rabbit.
Re: One of Florida's most lethal python hunters
#97This 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.
You can't shoot them. You must kill them by the guidelines from FWC. You're not allowed to run around with guns and shoot at the animals.
Re: One of Florida's most lethal python hunters
#98Great article! That said, the Everglades and its web of life as we know it have existed for five thousand years. In the comparative blink of an eye, that intricate system has been upended. ...that doesn't sound so bad, when you put it like that. This is part of a bigger philosophical stance of mine: maybe the best course of action isn't "preserve nature exactly as we found it forever"? I definitely see the utility in…
FWC, the Universities, and the Water Management districts are testing out a lot of methods --- including drones armed with an AI-based imaging system to identify the snakes & eventually eliminate. Given they're cold blooded you need to have visual confirmation - finding heat signatures isn't easy. FWC also has a truck outfitted with LIDAR to detect them. My family and I drove around in their trucks with FWC and WM earlier this year hunting them and learning what can be done to try and help solve this issue.
The snakes are captured & bagged, then they are humanely eliminated using a bolt gun to the brain. The brain is then completely destroyed using a metal rod to ensure there's no more activity.
Re: One of Florida's most lethal python hunters
#99I wonder if there's a way to attract them.
Re: One of Florida's most lethal python hunters
#100So 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.
>kill billions of native birds every year.
what is wrong with killing billions of ill and old birds? That is how Nature works, and the other predators do it in the non-developed areas where humans didn't push out those predators from. In the developed areas the other predators are gone, so thanks to the cats who do the necessary job of all those missing predators.
>They're an invasive species in most states
Do you see many native predators around humans? If anything the humans is the invasive species doing pretty much all the damage.