what happens to pythons caught in florida

That's why Millett gave the hunters some tips, such as looking along the water's edge, where the snakes like to hang out, and also simply listening for 'something big moving through the vegetation.'Įven so, catching 68 snakes is 'actually is a little more than I expected,' said Millett. What's more, the reptiles are ambush hunters, which means they spend much of their time lying in wait in dense vegetation, not moving, she said. 'It's rare that you get to see them stretched out-most of the time they're blending in,' said Cheryl Millett, a biologist at the Nature Conservancy, a Python Challenge partner. The animals are so well camouflaged that people can stand right next to one and not notice it. On top of that, Burmese pythons are notoriously hard to locate, experts say. For one, it's been unusually warm lately in Florida, which means the reptiles-which normally sun themselves to regulate their body temperature-are staying in the brush, making them harder to detect, Krysko said.

It's unknown just how many Burmese pythons live in Florida, but catching 68 snakes is an 'exceptional' number, added Kenneth Krysko, senior herpetologist at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville.įinding 68 snakes is impressive, experts say, since it's so hard to find pythons.

The commission gave cash prizes to those who harvested the most and longest pythons.įrank Mazzotti, a wildlife ecologist at the University of Florida and scientific leader for the challenge, said before the hunt that he would consider a harvest of 70 animals a success-and 68 is close enough to say the event met its goals. To highlight the python problem, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and its partners launched the 2013 Python Challenge, which encouraged registered participants to catch as many pythons as they could between January 12 and February 10 in state wildlife-management areas within the Everglades. Since being introduced, these Asian behemoths have flourished in Florida's swamps while also squeezing out local populations of the state's native mammals, especially in the Everglades. Nearly 1,600 people from 38 states-most of them inexperienced hunters-registered for the chance to track down one of the animals, many of which descend from snakes that either escaped or were dumped into the wild. And experts are surprised so many of the elusive giants were caught. It's a wrap-the 2013 Python Challenge has nabbed 68 invasive Burmese pythons in Florida, organizers say.

What happens to pythons caught in florida