Wildlife experts question python numbers in Everglades

In the dense woods, isolated swamps and steamy hammocks of the Florida Everglades, the battle for supremacy rages on, at least according to dispatches from the front by federal and state authorities.

Now those dispatches that claim tens of thousands - perhaps even more than 100,000 - of the marauding Burmese python horde roam the area, have come into question by wildlife experts who say there can't possibly be that many out there.

As the invasion enters its fourth decade (the first python spotted there in 1979), some are beginning to say the strength of the slithering snake infantry is way overblown.

Wildlife experts and proponents of the exotic pet industry scoff at some estimates that there are more than 100,000 pythons there, even though that was the number used by U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson in support of his bill to ban importation of pythons. Some government biologists have said there could be as many as 140,000 pythons in the Everglades and surrounding areas.

Whatever the numbers, the gripping photos stick in people's memory; evidence that there is a primal struggle for survival waged between the invaders and the natives, most notable of which is the American alligator, whose bloodline has prowled the 4,300 square miles of the Everglades since prehistoric times. Both are vying for the top prize: the first link of the food chain; the reptilian king of the jungle.

Photos of an alligator eating a thick squirming snake and a giant snake eating a 6-foot alligator (both died as a result) are dramatic. So is the photo of the Okeechobee animal hospital staff hoisting the body of a 17-foot, 200 pound python they found and killed next to their clinic in July.

And as the reptiles battle on, the estimates of the invaders' strength vary widely, depending on who's doing the estimating.

Linda Friar, spokeswoman for the Everglades National Park, admitted there may be as few as 5,000 pythons loose in the area. Or there may be as many as 140,000. She said that some of the disparity stems from the area covered by estimates and who is giving the estimates. The Everglades National Park is 2,400 square miles, while the entire Everglades ecosystem encompasses 18,000 square miles.

"Most folks tend to go to the high range," she said. "But, it all depends on who you are talking to. It's just a best guess. There's no empirical data. It's an elusive species, so we don't really know how many there are. We do know that they've adapted to the habitat.

"We know they are reproducing," she said. "We found nests and hatchlings."

The first python nest was found in 2006, she said. Python nests have between 40 and 100 hatchlings, she said, and "that makes us extremely concerned. It's significant. Most exotic species don't tend to survive there. It's a relatively harsh environment.

"We don't know what the survival rate is," she said. "There are a number of things that eat hatchlings, like wading birds, alligators and other snakes."

As the fight for survival continues, the high estimates of python numbers vex some wildlife experts.

There can't be hundreds - or even tens - of thousands of pythons, they say, or the snakes would be crawling onto the decks of airboats and across hoods of cars cruising Alligator Alley.

"I've heard numbers of up to 200,000," said Vernon Yates, founder of Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation in Seminole, "I'd like to know how they come up with that stupid exaggeration.

"I believe it's probably around 1,000," he said. "That would be more realistic."

But the squeamish public loves to picture the swamp awash in Burmese pythons. He said a German television station recently came here and interviewed him about the notion abroad that the Everglades is overrun with giant snapping, hissing serpents from Southeast Asia.

"Let's assume that there are 150,000 pythons there," he said. "I'd bet there are not 150,000 alligators in the Everglades; not 150,000 deer in the Everglades; I know there's not even near that in bears.

"But, you can go to the Everglades, see alligators, see deer, see bear; hell, you can even find panthers," he said. "I drive over Alligator Alley a lot. Every time, I see five dead alligators at least."
But, he said, not the first python, dead or alive.

Even a single python loose in Florida is one too many, he said, but trapping them and then killing them, which is what the trappers are required to do, goes too far, he said.

"I think it's a good idea to put a bounty on them, to go out and trap them," he said. "I have a hard time saying every one collected has to die."

Yates, who himself has trapped pythons in the Tampa Bay region, has doubts about the snakes' chances of survival in the 'Glades' harsh environment.

"I don't believe they are going to make it in the wild," he said. "They don't reproduce that fast and young snakes are preyed upon by the myriad of birds and other animals there that keep other snakes in check."

Joe Fauci, owner of Southeast Reptile Exchange, said he's heard from various sources that there could be as many 180,000 pythons in the Everglades. He seriously doubts that.

"There are not 180,000 water snakes in the Everglades," he said. "I don't believe it."

He has no idea why people would inflate figures, unless there is money or fame to be made through it somehow.

"I want to know how these guys can even make that estimate," he said. Pythons could not survive in that environment, he said. His money is on the alligators and birds of prey.

While ospreys and eagles would munch on smaller pythons, the larger ones aren't safe either, Fauci said.

"They would get eaten too," he said. "If a 12-foot Burmese swims in front of an 8-foot alligator he's going to get eaten up. Those alligators are going to chew them up 99 percent of the time. It's a nice little meal."

National Park Service biologists say that in October 2005, 22 pythons were killed by tractors tilling up the soil in one section of the preserve.

In 2006, 122 pythons were documented in the Everglades and biologists estimated then that there were more than 1,000. The increase was up considerably from the 11 pythons documented between 1995 and 2000.

Biologists say that before 1995, they had found only one in the big swamp and that was in 1979.

In July, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission authorized a handful of herpetologists to go on hunting sprees. They were given a free hand to conduct special operations missions into the wilds of the swamp to eliminate with extreme prejudice the invading hordes.

The first day, hunters found a 10-foot python and the second weekend, three python hatchlings. Since then, hunting has been off. Only about a dozen have been captured altogether, but the hunters say safaris will be more fruitful when the weather cools and the snakes come out into the open to sun themselves.

Biologists don't hold much hope for eliminating the species from the Everglades altogether, according to a National Parks Service newsletter published in July.

But, they do want to control the species, to keep the python problem from worsening. State and federal biologists are trying to cut the python population of South Florida to the "ecologically extinct level - that is, to numbers so low that the species cannot play a significant role in ecosystem functioning," the newsletter said.

"We'd then be dealing with nuisance pythons here and there," the publication said, "not pythons by the hundreds of thousands causing serious problems in geographically widespread areas."

The damage an invasive species like Burmese pythons can do to the Everglades is obvious, said Friar of the National Park Service. Although the environment is harsh, the ecosystem is delicate.

"We have a large predator coming in that can disrupt the natural system of who eats whom," she said. "There is competition for food sources. The more you add to the competition, the more you throw out of balance a pretty fragile system."

Looking to the future, biologists are wondering what other exotic animals are coming into the state as pets that someday may find their way into the wild and take root.

"Some people just may not understand that it's not good to release these species into wild," she said. "They think they're sending them home.

"But, they don't' belong there."

Curbing The Python Population

Biologists with the National Park Service have these suggestions on how to curb the growing population of the invasive Burmese pythons in the Everglades:

•Establish partnerships to carry out control efforts. Currently agencies involved in the effort include the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the South Florida Water Management District, the University of Florida and the Savannah River Ecology Lab.

•Concentrate on research that can predict where pythons congregate, making capture more efficient. Biologists are conducting necropsies on pythons found in the Everglades to learn what the snakes are eating. Some pythons released a few years ago, have implanted radio transmitters to signal where they roam.

•Make it easy for people to report the location of any pythons they encounter in the wild. The park service already has a python hotline that the public can use to report python sightings in parks. The number is (305) 242-7827 or (305) 815-2080.

•Establish rapid response teams to deal with python problems. Such action can eliminate new infestations before they can grow out of control.

•Develop reliable ways to locate pythons, which move in densely vegetated or remote areas and are well camouflaged. Some scientists suggest using dogs specially trained to pick up trails of pythons from along roads or canal banks.

•Use traps baited with attractants such as pheromones.

•Encourage licensed hunters to shoot pythons on sight.

•Pay bounties to people who capture or kill free-roaming pythons.

•Promote responsible exotic pet ownership.