Predator thrives in Florida, ravages environment

Right now, an apex predator glides through the weeds in the Florida Everglades. It strikes from the shadows. One moment, a bird is singing and flitting across a branch. The next? Gone, only a few stray feathers drifting to the ground.

If our spooky language conjures up snakes in your mind’s eye, bullseye. Yet we’re not talking about just any snake — this is the Burmese python. The name implies Asia, but the pythons are now shockingly common in the Everglades.

The beautifully marked, non-venomous snakes were first discovered in the Everglades in 1979, and since then, explosive breeding and a lack of natural checks and balances have led to a surge in the Burmese python population. Some estimate that 300,000 or more of these pythons are already present in Florida.

Experts believe that the snakes first arrived in the Everglades as discarded pets. Even snake collectors can underestimate how big these pythons grow. In captivity, they quickly to grow to as long as six feet, and in zoos, some have reached 18 feet.

Unfortunately, the Everglades make too perfect of a home. In southeast Asia, where Burmese pythons are a native species, the wildlife has adapted to their presence. Rodents, birds, and other potential prey know to watch out while predators higher up the food chain will happily eat them. In the Everglades, the pythons took the unprepared wildlife by storm. Sometimes, native alligators eat pythons. But other times, pythons eat alligators.

Pythons are suspected culprits in the dramatic decline of raccoon, opossum, bobcat, rabbit, and fox populations.

The Florida government and various organizations are working to eliminate the Burmese python. Some organizations capture and rehome them, while others support hunters who can find and eliminate them. But the local python population continues to swell.