
The men fighting Florida’s python epidemic - xkr
https://www.1843magazine.com/features/the-men-fighting-floridas-python-epidemic
======
garyclarke27
There is a simple natural permanent solution for this problem, just introduce
an Apex predator - the majestic Jaguar. Jaguars used to inhabit the southern
parts of North America - they seldom attack humans but they will happily eat
snakes and alligators. They could restore health to the ecosystem, also make
it more interesting, thus also benefiting the tourist industry.

~~~
varlogix
"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.

~~~
vram22
Right. A leopard came at least once somewhere inside Pune, which is a big
city, and attacked some people, IIRC. And there are many cases of leopards
attacking people in smaller towns and villages, on the outskirts of them, that
I have read of, in Maharashtra (state in India, in which Pune and Mumbai are)
and probably in other states too.

~~~
abakker
There is actually some incredible footage of Jaguars inside Indian cities in
planet earth 2. In case anyone is curious.

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mitchtbaum
Does anyone have links to more companies selling these animals' skins? Has
anyone bought any of these and can share a review? Any other recent updates to
what's going on in this market?

[https://pythonwildman.com/](https://pythonwildman.com/)

[http://web.archive.org/web/20180830211800/https://floridapyt...](http://web.archive.org/web/20180830211800/https://floridapythoncollection.com/)

\---

Unfortunately, it looks like their carcasses are toxic. So food cycling them
won't work.

[https://www.outsideonline.com/1794941/florida-officals-
dont-...](https://www.outsideonline.com/1794941/florida-officals-dont-eat-
python-meat)

Anyone know how to cost-effectively bioremediate mercury laden materials?

~~~
mitchtbaum
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...](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=everglades+hunting+python)

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dmckeon
Estimate of 100,000 pythons in the wild, perhaps starting from an inadvertent
release in 1992, and ...

> Pythons face few predators here. In the spring, each adult female lays up to
> 100 eggs. Once her female children reach the age of four, they too begin to
> breed.

How many pythons would need to be caught each year to reduce the population
to, say, less than 1,000? I think this infestation may need a different
approach.

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efiecho
To you that live in parts of the world that have snakes, do they affect you in
any way?

There are no snakes where I live, and I'm extremely uncomfortable just
thinking about the possibility of one entering your home or seeing one.

Imagine cleaning your garage and finding a snake curled up behind some stuff,
the state of terror I would be in is out of this world.

~~~
currymj
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.

~~~
sehugg
Copperheads are bad, especially since many other species look like them. They
can put you in the hospital. Avoid the triangle head.

~~~
lostapathy
The danger of copperheads is greatly overstated. Yes, they are venomous and
will bite, but they are very rarely fatal to humans.

~~~
Pharmakon
I wish that I could remember where I read this, but I recall that a majority
of venemous snake bites in the U.S. were on the hand or lower arm, and/or
involved alcohol. The implication was that a lot of the time people try to
handle the things, especially while drunk.

This seems to reference a similar stat:
[http://www.reptilesmagazine.com/Reptile-
News/2008/07/07/Veno...](http://www.reptilesmagazine.com/Reptile-
News/2008/07/07/Venomous/)

------
larrydag
Our family visited the Everglades a few years ago. This is indeed an epidemic
to the natural habitat. In fact the guides said that anyone can come by and
hunt Python. The biggest threat is to the birds in the area.

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neya
I almost thought it was going to be a 2.7 vs 3.x discussion until I saw the
cover photo...you got me, OP. Haha.

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Zenst
For it to be a epidemic issue, I'd be expecting two well trained hunters of
pythons to catch more than they did "In the first eight days the snake-
catching tribesmen removed 13 of the snakes" as not even two a day.

Anybody know the population numbers or the growth rate (the pythons that is)
as I'm suspecting that kind of removal rate would only be useful in
controlling small area's of land and have little/negligible effect upon the
overall population.

------
tomohawk
Maybe these guys could learn something from these snake hunters from India:

[https://www.floridatoday.com/story/sports/2017/01/26/sargent...](https://www.floridatoday.com/story/sports/2017/01/26/sargent-
tribesmen-spearhead-python-removal/97079892/)

------
rajacombinator
They should also pass laws to make it a major crime to harbor these creatures.
Eg. 5 years min for possession, 20+ for dealing. Probably won’t deter all the
morons, but it will work on some.

------
solidsnack9000
It's surprising there aren't special guns or shot being developed for shooting
them.

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bmc7505
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect)

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philistine
Just switch to Ruby.

------
Someone
So, finally learned what PEP stands for. It’s Python Elamination Program,
which is _“not currently accepting new python removal agents”_
([https://www.sfwmd.gov/our-work/python-program](https://www.sfwmd.gov/our-
work/python-program))

I’m mentioning that because that page has a few strong contenders for the
“meaningless graph of the year” award. Did you know that the total length of
pythons eliminated was over twice the maximum depth of the Grand Canyon or
that their weight was less than that of two male African elephants?

So, if you take a male American elephants weight of pythons stupid enough to
be hunted and place them head to tail, you can make a rope that allows you to
abseil the Grand Canyon.

~~~
mikeash
Surely the tensile strength of python is insufficient for this.

------
c22
Can we lowercase _python_ in the title? This was not the Python I was looking
for.

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

~~~
tyingq
_" There was just whitespace, everywhere, it was... frightening"_

~~~
apple4ever
“In the middle of the fight, tabs and spaces invaded and war’s brutality took
a new turn.”

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plg
I thought this was an article about the Mathworks Inc.

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ReptileMan
This problem looks like could be solved with specialty drones.

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

~~~
brownbat
With some duct tape and a machete, you could try to hack together some python
to make a drone that tries to hack pythons.

~~~
jsmith99
If we're giving in to the whole 'Let's build lethal killer drones' thing, it
seems appropriate that it happens in the USA from someone's hacky python
project.

~~~
Zenst
Comments like that need a disclaimer - Don't read whilst drinking coffee.

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shurcooL
I misread this post as having 1843 points and was very puzzled for a few
minutes...

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kartan
The solution is really easy. You just need to pay people for each dead python
that they bring in.

And problem solved.

~~~
empath75
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect)

~~~
pdpht
I don't understand the downvotes to the GP, he is clearly referring in jest to
this.

~~~
kartan
Thanks for noticing. I'm sorry that you got downvoted for it.

My comment was a test, I wanted to see how it played out. Even with such
common knowledge topic, I see that there is not enough "tone" in my comment
for people to be able to read its intention.

This is a similar case to Poe's law.

Next time I will try with ";)". I guess that it will clarify the intent of the
comment.

So, no fault in the people that did not notice. Next time I will do better.

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law)

