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Python problem tough to swallow

Thanks to bad pet owners, snake handlers stay busy near the Everglades.

By TAMARA LUSH
Published October 16, 2005

	[Photo courtesy of Everglades National Park]
	Trappers have caught 156 pythons in the Everglades. There's no telling how many the alligators have caught.

SWEETWATER - To the guys at Venom One - Miami-Dade County's snakebite and snake removal unit - pythons are old news.

Sure, one python ate a Miami Gardens kitty, an 18-pounder, last week. Yes, a few days later, another python gobbled a turkey in Southwest Miami-Dade then got stuck in a fence, too engorged to escape.

But the Venom One team finds pythons every week, almost every day, in the tropical urban backyards and swampy suburban lowlands of Miami-Dade County. This week alone, they picked up five pythons.

"I guess the snake that ate the alligator was the first domino," sighed Lt. Charles Seifert, a snake enthusiast who was a firefighter with Miami-Dade Fire Rescue before transferring to the department's special unit.

Ah yes, who could forget that story, or the graphic photo that accompanied it? It was all the rage on the Internet, a death match in the Everglades, two super-predators battling it out in a steamy swamp. The fight yielded no living winner: the snake split open after completely swallowing the 6-foot gator.

Three python incidents, all in South Florida, all in the span of 10 days.

It begs the question: What the heck is going on?

To find out, one must drive an hour or so southwest from downtown Miami, into the heart of python country: Everglades National Park.

Pythons are aliens in this world, yet they feel right at home. Their normal habitat, according to Animal Planet, is in Africa, within "grasslands, swamps, marshes, rocky foothills, woodlands, jungles and river valleys."

Sounds exactly like the Everglades.

Of course, they are not coming here on their own.

"They are pets or descendants of former pets," said Skip Snow, the park's wildlife biologist. "They don't occur naturally here."

People usually buy the small baby pythons, thinking they are cute, nice pets for the kids.

Then they get bigger than the kids. When they are about 9 feet long and can't fit in a 10-gallon aquarium, that's when people are most likely to let them loose under the cover of darkness.

Releasing an exotic animal into the wild is illegal in Florida, but it's nearly impossible for authorities to catch someone in the act.

In the past three years, Snow and others at the park have captured 156 pythons, some big (15 feet) and some small (foot-long hatchlings). Almost all have been euthanized. Snow knows there are more out there, lurking in the marsh: female pythons have been found with some 40-50 eggs inside.

The problem with pythons is that they grow, and grow big. The one that devoured the alligator was 13 feet long. There is an almost unlimited food supply in the Everglades: mice, deer, birds, you name it, a python will eat it. In the first year they can grow to 9 feet. Twenty feet is not unheard for an adult.

At first, Snow wondered if the Everglades' alligators would cull the python population. Then came reports from tourists who saw alligator-python battles. And this month, Snow took a helicopter to see the carcasses from the aforementioned death match. It was photos from this expedition that caused the worldwide sensation.

Snow and others worry that pythons will decimate the Everglades' native species, much in the way the brown tree snake killed off the bird population on the island of Guam.

He is so concerned he has given the okay for a colleague to buy and train a beagle to sniff out pythons. Python Pete is the beagle, and he spends his days at a research center in the park, alternately sniffing two training snakes (Burmese Bob and Burmese Bart) and scarfing down treats.

Pete, who is 18 months old, will likely start his job this winter, when the temperatures are a little lower. His owner, biologist Lori Oberhofer, notes that Pete even gets excited when he sniffs the bag that the captured snakes are placed in. (For the record, Oberhofer prefers Martha Stewart mesh laundry bags for this task).

Snow is also applying for grants in hopes of getting some cash to pay for python traps.

"We need to do something," he said.

Kenneth Krysko, a herpetologist with the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville, takes a harsher view: "No one needs a python."

Krysko is among a growing number of animal experts statewide who wants to ban the sale of certain exotic species. Too many people, he said, are releasing pythons, parrots and iguanas into the streets and swamps of Florida. They are upsetting the ecosystem here, he said.

"They don't belong here," he said. "I would like to see pet owners be more responsible."

All three members of Venom One are snake owners. Lt. Seifert owns about two dozen. Capt. Al Cruz owns a dozen and Capt. Ernie Jillson owns a couple dozen more, including a few venomous snakes.

They, too, try to educate people to be responsible pet owners. But they realize that some scofflaws will let their animals loose, which is where they come in.

Although they will respond to calls for 3-inch garden snakes or 13-foot boas, their specialty is venom, the kind that a rattlesnake or a water moccasin, both Florida natives, can deliver.

The unit has the largest antivenin bank in the United States, which means that if you are bitten by a fer-de-lance (commonly referred to as a "one-stepper" because you may only live to take one step after it bites you) or a coral snake (native to Florida), the guys at Venom One will drive, fly or FedEx a vial of antivenin to you. They have answered approximately 800 calls from bite victims since the creation of the unit in 1997 and not one has died.

Pythons, of course, aren't poisonous. They squeeze their prey to death, then eat them whole.

Still, the Vemon One crew has a few important tips. Don't pick up any snakes, even small ones. Ninety percent of snake bite victims are bitten on the hand.

Call 911 immediately if you are bitten.

And whatever you do, they say, if you own exotic snakes, don't let them loose if you can't care for them. Take them to a shelter, a zoo, a sanctuary, or in the worst case scenario, have them euthanized.

You don't want your snake to end up in someone's backyard, or worse, the Everglades.

Which is why Snow and others are trying not to worry about a recent report of an 8-foot-long snake that was run over by a car on U.S. 41 near the Everglades.

It was an anaconda, the largest-known snake in the world.

Tamara Lush can be reached at 727 893-8612 or at lush@sptimes.com

For more information on Miami-Dade Fire Rescue's Venom One unit, go to www.venomone.com

[Last modified October 16, 2005, 01:57:12]