AMN: Faced with an unrelenting spread of invasive Burmese pythons that have mostly wiped out marsh rabbits, bobcats and other small mammals, Everglades National Park is doing something for the first time in its 70-year history: opening park borders to paid hunters.
On Thursday, Superintendent Pedro Ramos announced plans to team up with state wildlife officers who last year began hiring hunters to kill the voracious snakes.
“We’ve been chasing this problem trying to find a solution and frankly we ran up against a wall over and over again,” he told the Miami Herald. “That history requires us to be open-minded and flexible.” read more
Maybe I missed something in the story. Are they talking live humting or kills? I assume kills. I like snakes, but wouldn’t want to meet up with a full grown python.
Does that mean the hunters can use real guns or are they being restricted to something much less lethal?
IF an alligator is not enough, than a 20 gauge will do.
We ARE talking about an invasive species…that can kill you!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfYAj1k9uZM
@Jane, with the crazies running around in the woods with hunters on opening day, pretty sure the article was left devoid of as much detail as possible.
Friends keep trying to get me to come down there for that. Today was the last day of school the the kids…..just need a little pocket change.
I hate snakes and would never go hunting for them, but would certainly blow the head off any python I came across.
hoes brilliant was to to allow people to have them as pets in the first place?e
Some of those pythons came from smuggling (people buy them as babies and then suddenly they get too big and dangerous), Chinese ‘medicine’ shops bringing them in illegally, among other things.
They are supposed to taste okay.
Hand out recipes too.
About time they resorted to common sense and let slip the boys with guns.
Hey they could always use a 16 ton weight or a pointed stick if it was a Monty Python. I’m with Indiana Jones, I hate snakes especially big snakes like pythons and poisonous ones like rattlesnakes etc.
Use them “Walking Dead” machete’s on them and make them into littler snakes (they don’t multiply like earthworms right?).
Offer a couple hundred South American (vetted) “immigrants” the opportunity to gain at least a green card, maybe more.
In the past they allowed hunts of short duration and few people were allowed with permits. About time they decided to get more aggressive, those things are creeping northward and killing untold numbers of wading birds,deer and other animals. They really need to get a handle on this quick. Typical government idiots, wait till it’s too late then take action.
UNLEASH THE FREE MARKET
Slow learners every time man. You put up some cash, and get the hell out of the way, you’ll be surprised what people will come up with to make some money, get some notoriety, and have some fun.
If they got some smart people, they’d devise a thermal camera that could only detect these snakes, and people could just blow them up from a helicopter.
Or you can sit back and whine about how environmentalists need to be appeased and not have the guts to do something about it.
On May 23 paid hunters outside the park, in the water management district (state), killed their 1,000th python.
http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Hissssssssssssssssstory-Made-in-the-Everglades–SFWMD-Python-Hunters-Eliminate-1000th-Snake.html?soid=1117910826311&aid=sQUgi9kQ_xw
The National Park brought snake hunters (charmers?) from India who managed to kill 14 snakes in 2 weeks. Heh leave it to FED Gov to know how to waste taxpayer money.
In the past contests have resulted in dead snakes and more than a few hunters getting lost and rescued from the millions of square miles in the Everglades.
Nah, don’t kill em. Capture and transport em to the Rio Grande. That should slow down a few illegals.
We found the skin of a 13’er on Geiger Key…If I see this
Post on FB I’ll post a pic.
They were using Beagles to sniff them out..Haven’t heard
anything on that in a while.
They were hoping that one of the rare freezes would kill them off but it didn’t happen. They are predicting that the snakes will continue populating area northward and past Florida. Watch out for your pets!
Best solution….
1. Open season on pythons with no limit….
2. Get Black, Brown, White, Yellow, and Cajun chefs to come up with a tasty Python dish….
3. Everglades pythons disappear.
In most States feral exotics are classified as “other wildlife” and it is legal to kill them without restriction. I cannot begin to understand why this would not be the case regarding these snakes.
The state puts stupid restrictions on hunting invasive species then years later when is doesn’t work they
change the rules, well now they have had another DECADE to proliferate. WTF
My brother had a python, not a Burmese, one of the smaller species.
He lost it, he was about 12 and living with parents in a rental house in the beach on Hilton Head Is.
Years later the grandson, who I went to HS with, of the home owners, called me and informed me they had found a big snake in the walls of the house when it was torn down to make room for a McMansion.
I laughed and told him that is had belonged to my brother, then he told me something shocking, it was alive and did I want to get it. Told him no and do what he wanted with it.
It was an old ramshackle beach house, the snake probably made a pretty good living on rats.