BIG CYPRESS NATIONAL PRESERVE, Fla. (AP) - An armed mob set out into
the Florida Everglades on Saturday to flush out a scaly invader.
It sounds like the second act of a sci-fi horror
flick but, really, it's pretty much Florida's plan for dealing with an
infestation of Burmese pythons that are eating their way through a
fragile ecosystem.
Nearly 800 people signed up for the month-long
"Python Challenge" that started Saturday afternoon. The vast majority -
749 - are members of the general public who lack the permits usually
required to harvest pythons on public lands.
"We feel like anybody can get out in the Everglades
and figure out how to try and find these things," said Nick Wiley,
executive director of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation
Commission. "It's very safe, getting out in the Everglades. People do it
all the time."
Twenty-eight python permit holders also joined the
hunt at various locations in the Everglades. The state is offering cash
prizes to whoever brings in the longest python and whoever bags the most
pythons by the time the competition ends at midnight Feb. 10.
Dozens of would-be python hunters showed up for
some last-minute training in snake handling Saturday morning at the
University of Florida Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center in
Davie.
The training came down to common sense: Drink water, wear sunscreen, don't get bitten by anything and don't shoot anyone.
Many of the onlookers dressed in camouflage, though
they probably didn't have to worry about spooking the snakes. They
would have a much harder time spotting the splotchy, tan pythons in the
long green grasses and woody brush of the Everglades.
"It's advantage-snake," mechanical engineer Dan
Keenan concluded after slashing his way through a quarter-mile of
scratchy sawgrass, dried leaves and woody overgrowth near a campsite in
the Big Cypress National Preserve, which is about 50 miles southeast of
Naples and is supervised by the National Park Service.
Keenan, of Merritt Island, and friend Steffani Burd
of Melbourne, a statistician in computer security, holstered large
knives and pistols on their hips, so they'd be ready for any python that
crossed their path. The snakes can grow to more than 20 feet in length.
The most useful tool they had, though, was the key
fob to their car. Burd wanted to know that they hadn't wandered too far
into the wilderness, so Keenan clicked the fob until a reassuring beep
from their car chirped softly through the brush.
The recommended method for killing pythons is the
same for killing zombies: a gunshot to the brain, or decapitation to
reduce the threat. (The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
doesn't approve of the latter method, though.)
Pythons are kind of the zombies of the Everglades,
though their infestation is less deadly to humans. The snakes have no
natural predators, they can eat anything in their way, they can
reproduce in large numbers and they don't belong here.
Florida currently prohibits possession or sale of
the pythons for use as pets, and federal law bans the importation and
interstate sale of the species.
Wildlife experts say pythons are just the tip of
the invasive species iceberg. Florida is home to more exotic species of
amphibians and reptiles than anywhere else in the world, said John
Hayes, dean of research for the University of Florida's Institute for
Food and Agricultural Sciences.
Roughly 2,050 pythons have been harvested in
Florida since 2000, according to the conservation commission. It's
unknown exactly how many are slithering through the wetlands.
Officials hope the competition will help rid the
Everglades of the invaders while raising awareness about the risks that
exotic species pose to Florida's native wildlife.
Keenan and Burd emerged from the Everglades
empty-handed Saturday, but they planned to return Sunday, hoping for
cooler temperatures that would drive heat-seeking snakes into sunny
patches along roads and levees.
Burd still deemed the hunt a success. "For me, I
take back to my friends and community that there is a beautiful
environment out here. It's opening the picture from just the python
issue to the issue of how do we protect our environment," she said.
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