1. The Burmese Python and the Florida Everglades
Nick Scanlon

2. Goals What is a Burmese Python? Where are they from?
How did they get to Florida?
Why are they so successful?
What problems are they causing?
What can be done to stop them?

3. What is a Burmese Python?
Python molorus bivittatus
Family: Pythonidae
8-12 feet
pounds
Life expectancy 25 years
Predatory carnivores

4. Where are they from?

5. How did they get to Florida?
Pet Trade
Sold at Reptile pet shows(now a permit is needed to sell and purchase)
Relatively cheap($20-60)
When purchased relatively small

6. Why did they get to the Everglades
Python causes problems with family/friends
Pet owners become overwhelmed
Release the pythons into the wild

7. Why Are They So Successful?
Very abundant Food sources
No competition
No predators

8. What kind of problems are they causing?
Eating everything
Unfair competition for native snakes and other top predators

9. Rabbit (Sylvilagus sp.)
Hispid cotton rat (Sigmodon hispidus)
Cotton mouse (Peromyscus gossypinus)
Gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis)
Fox squirrel (Sciurus niger)
Domestic cat (Felis catus)
Raccoon (Procyon lotor)
Old world rats (Rattus sp.)
Virginia opossum (Didelphis virginiana)
Bobcat (Felis rufus)
Round-tailed muskrat (Neofiber alleni)
Rice rat (Oryzomys palustris)
White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus)
Key Largo woodrat (Neotoma floridana smalli)
Birds
Pied-billed grebe (Podilymbus podiceps)
Limpkin (Aramus guarauna)
White ibis (Eudocimus albus)
American coot (Fulica american)
House wren (Troglodytes aedon)
Domestic goose (Anser sp.)
Reptiles
American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis)

10. Concern of Further Migration?

11. What can we do?
Removing by hand
Bounty on snake heads
Nothing(?)

12. Problems with Removing by Hand?
Very slow
Very time consuming
Not very effective

13. Problems with Bounty Hunting?
Tax payers money
Safety of the bounty hunters
Safety of the natives of the everglades

14. Do Nothing Approach?

15. So What Works Best?

16. Should Anything Be Done?
Already established
Might be too big of a problem to tackle
Time and money might be better spent in other issues(roads, schools, etc.)