The men fighting Florida’s python epidemic (opens in new tab)

"they seldom attack humans but they will happily eat snakes and alligators." This may not be a good idea. A lot of Indian towns are now facing problems of leopards attacking (and sometimes killing) humans, and these attacks have started to happen in crowded cities like Mumbai. Leopards earlier never attacked humans, but as they lost their habitat and the leopard population has grown, they now routinely attack people, sometimes carrying off kids.

True but they have a varied enough diet that snakes may only be marginally affected. To bring down pythons you'd need a more targeted predator, or a virus or bacteria or something that targets pythons alone.

> just introduce an Apex predator - the majestic Jaguar

This is just what Florida needs: Jaguars.

I can already imagine the new "floridaman" headlines...

On top of that, what could go wrong?

Until the dogs and cats start disappearing. Local wildlife. Apex predation is a risky tactic.

No jaguars (anymore), but the Florida Panther still prowls about.

They may seldom attack humans, but it wouldn't be safe/smart to let your kids play outside if there were jaguars around.

There's Snakes where I live (Australia). You just kind of normalize them - don't really give them much thought.

Growing up I was always told "Snakes are more afraid of you then you are of them" and "Snakes are only hostile if you provoke them."

You hear stories from time to time about people's dogs being attacked by snakes but never really a concern. I've had lizards wander into my house (occasionally on the larger side - a few years ago I heard rustling in my kitchen found a Lizard that was about 20cm - picked it up with a beach towel and released it outside) but thankfully never any snakes.

Poisonous spiders are more of a concern for me then snakes, especially Redback's. I've found these in my house multiple times.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redback_spider

I live in a rural part of Thailand and there are lots of snakes. I see them a couple times a month. There are both venomous and non-venomous. Around my home I most often see pythons, golden tree snakes, and rat snakes. There is also the ocaissonal monocled cobra, krait and there was a green pit viper once. They are all beautiful. I usually capture and release them far away from any homes.

I like seeing them, but the presence of venomous snakes are a cause for concern for pets and kids. So when we walk in the garden we try to be noisy and alert.

Snakes are quite common where I live (southwestern USA), and I see more rattlesnakes here than nonvenomous snakes. They will bite if you threaten them, but they absolutely will not bother you if you don't bother them first. That said, they are mainly a problem for people's dogs since dogs instinctively try to attack snakes, and in the case of a rattlesnake bite that results in a very expensive visit to a veterinarian. So I relocate rattlesnakes out into less populated places when my neighbors call me after finding one in their yard.

most snakes are small and harmless. it’s not any worse than seeing a rat or a lizard.

in the US the main snake everyone gets warned about is the coral snake, which has a distinctive pattern and is very poisonous.

The article addresses this, you should read it.

They did this in India for rats or snakes (can't remember which). To make money, people then started breeding the creatures. :)

>For a snake less than 4ft long, like this one, hunters receive $50. Every additional foot in length earns them another $25. On top of that, they get the minimum wage –$8.25 an hour in Florida – for the time they spend on district land.

I personally can’t wait for a python language epidemic!

The article above this right now on the front page is "Awesome Python" which I found rather humorous in combination with your comment.

For a second I wondered why would you fight such a thing ? Then it hit me...

Drones with infra-red are already used for using infra-red identification (not bombing the animal, that would be horrible).

But perhaps more tech could help too.

I think the problem too, is incentives. Everglades is a dangerous place...

But sponsored hunts pay little

" Hunters earn $8.10 per hour for up to eight hours daily, $50 bonus for each python measuring up to four feet (plus an extra $25 for each additional foot), and $200 for each eliminated python nest with eggs. "

https://woodburyoutfitters.com/the-trailblazer/using-drones-...

Finding nests is very hard... Basically one needs to add a tracker to the animal to see where they go.

In general invasive species that kill native species is a problem all over the world...

There should be a well thought out and, most importantly replicatable, corruption-free process how to deal with it (as well as other man-made natural catastrophes).

Dropping poison? A python is a pretty big thing to kill some other way with a drone.

Surely the tensile strength of python is insufficient for this.

They’re just trying to bring some colour to their report.

Also, I'd like to support stellar Everglades python hunters, on Patreon etc, and it looks like there are several.. I need to go through this later: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=everglades+hunt...