Posted July 24th, 2007 by Kurt Repanshek
A python by the tail.

Pytons are a growing problem in Everglades National Park. NPS Photo.

Non-native pythons, once thought to be someone's pets, are running amuck in Everglades National Park and other parts of south Florida. In the latest story on this dilemma, from the New York Times, park biologists express amazement over the reptile's diet.

“We’ve found everything, from very small mammals — native cotton mice, native cotton rats, rabbits, squirrels, possums, raccoons, even a bobcat, most recently the hooves of a deer,” Skip Snow told the newspaper. “Wading birds and water birds, pied-billed grebes, coots, egrets, limpkins and at least one big alligator.”

The article, which you can find here, relates the problems park and Florida officials are having in combating the big snakes. It also relates that a South American anaconda was found nearby in Big Cypress National Preserve.

For more on this story, check out this 2005 report from National Geographic News.

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Comments

Jeremy Sullivan

On July 24th, 2007

That photo is enough to give me nightmares.

Merryland

On July 24th, 2007

Florida is one giant exotic species nature preserve gone awry. I remember one day at the Visitor Center at the 'Glades seeing a parakeet hanging out with a gaggle of sparrows. The poor little guy was certainly lost, but seemed to find some solace in the group of similar-sized birds with similar needs.

Then there are all the bug-eating birds who wait for your car to park and feast on the bugs that have been pasted to the front of your vehicle, the crows who rip the rubber wiper blades off your car as some sort of fowl joke, and the suburbs throughout the state have plenty of boneheads dumping their unwanted tropical fish, caymans, snakes, and other exotic beasts into the canals. It's a jungle down there.

-- Jon Merryman

haunted hiker (not verified)

On July 26th, 2007

This photo is too much! Check out the smile on the ranger's face. I love it.

A while back, I interviewed a couple who witnessed an alligator vs python battle to the death on the Anhinga Trail in 2004. Here's a link to the photo and story that appeared in the NY Times http://www.wildphotoguy.com/photoshoot.htm

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