[Cuts from the snake-story links posted above...commentary to follow.]
But his current project involves creatures much larger than he caught as a child in the 1950s — Burmese pythons, which can grow to more than 20 feet long and which have infested the Florida Everglades, 100,000 strong by some estimations.
“And they are heading north,” Gibbons said recently from his Savannah River lab in Aiken, S.C. “How much further north, no one knows, but it’s something we are trying to find out by seeing how they survive the winter this far north.”
Some scientists speculate that most of the pythons infesting the Everglades are the progeny of pets that escaped en masse when Hurricane Andrew damaged or destroyed more than 125,000 homes in 1992. But just how adaptable the snakes are as they spread farther north is the subject of the study being conducted jointly at Gibbons’ lab by the University of Florida, Davidson College and the National Park Service.
Some models, based on the python’s range in its native Asian habitat, project that the snakes could move up various waterways into most of the Southern states to the Smoky Mountains and even as far west as California.
But Frank Struss, director of facilities engineering at the University of Alabama and an amateur herpetologist who has owned exotic snakes, said he can already tell Gibbons and others working on the project what will happen over the winter.
“Without some protective place to go for warmth, like under a house, they will die,” he said. “I’ve had that happen to me. In the winter I put heating pads in my snake enclosures, and one winter one of them failed, and a pretty good-sized ball python I had died of pneumonia.”
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Snakes are everywhere and worthy of respect, aficionados say
Snakes are everywhere in Florida. They are in college students' dorm rooms. They are invading parks and possibly threatening the Everglades ecosystem.
In recent weeks, snakes have slithered onto the agendas of Sen. Bill Nelson and Gov. Charlie Crist.
"There are probably snakes in your yard," said Jim Weimer, a park biologist at Paynes Prairie. "You'll never see them, but they are there."
Nelson introduced a bill last month that would ban the import of Burmese pythons after a Sumter County toddler was strangled by one in early July.
In January 2008, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission established new rules for people who own or exhibit wildlife. The new law requires anyone who wants to buy one of six reptiles, including Burmese pythons, to pay a $100 yearly fee and have a microchip implanted in the animal for tracking.
Estimates of the number of Burmese pythons living in the Everglades range from 30,000 to 150,000. Confirmation that the non-native snakes - former pets that either escaped from or were released by their owners - were reproducing in the wild was first made in 2006.
A study released by the U.S. Geological Survey in 2008 warned that climate factors alone could accommodate Burmese pythons. Another study released that same year by researchers from the University of Florida and Davidson College warned that pythons already had migrated as far as Key Largo.
And yet, many of those who know the most about snakes say the recent negative attention is largely making a mountain out of a relative molehill.
"There are no wild populations this far north, and there never will be," said Shawn Heflick, president of the Central Florida Herpetological Society in Winter Park. "It's too cold up here."
Heflick, a biologist from Palm Bay, was one of seven people the FWC granted an official permit in July to hunt Burmese pythons in the Everglades. He has captured two pythons since receiving his permit, which expires Oct. 31.
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It's been over a month since the state-sponsored python hunt kicked off, but only a handful of the reptiles have been caught. Local 10 went along to find out firsthand what hunters face in their search for the invasive reptile.
Hunter Josh Zarmati showed Local 10’s Jonathan Vigliotti how he hunts in the Francis S. Taylor Wildlife Management Area. The two ventured into the Everglades on Wednesday night.
"I do this because I love the Everglades and I hate to see them destroyed, whether it be by liter or invasive species," Zarmati told Vigliotti as they off-roaded in a pickup truck.
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Zarmati grew up near the Everglades. He said in the past two decades he witnessed the python population grow from zero to an estimated 150,000.
"They don't belong here. The Burmese is eating anything it can get its mouth on: alligators, rabbits, foxes, you name it. They are throwing off the balance here."
About 10 miles into the drive, Zarmati pulled off the side of a road to search a tree.
"I've seen pythons around here before," Zarmati explained.
A 10-minute search produced nothing. The journey continued.
It's believed pet owners introduced the python to the Everglades by dumping the snake there when they grew too big.
On July 15, Gov. Charlie Crist and Florida Fish and Wildlife announced the first-ever state-sponsored python hunt, an effort to eradicate the invasive species from the Everglades.
Zarmati is one of only 13 licensed hunters permitted to do this on a volunteer basis. The results have been mediocre at best. Only 14 snakes have been caught since the hunt began. Of those, Zarmati said he caught six.
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According to reptile experts, Burmese pythons rarely attack humans, and the occasional attacks that do occur in the United States are typically carried out by pets, not wild pythons. The Humane Society of the United States reports that least a dozen people, including five children, have been killed in the United States by pet pythons since 1980.
On July 1, a pet Burmese python in Florida broke out of a glass cage and strangled to death a toddler sleeping in her crib. In 2008, a Virginia Beach, Va., woman was killed by a 13-foot-long reticulated python while she was trying to give it medicine. A year earlier, a 19-year-old man from the Bronx died when his 13-foot python attacked him. His body was found in the hallway of his apartment building, and a live chicken, still in a box, was found nearby. Apparently the man was preparing to feed the snake, and authorities suspect the python mistook him for food. In 2001, a pet Burmese python killed an 8-year-old girl in Allegheny County, Penn.
In 1993, an 11-foot pet python killed a 15-year-old boy in his bed in Commerce City, Colorado. The snake, which weighed less than the boy, bit him on the right foot and then apparently suffocated him. That same year, a man died in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana after a fight with his pet, a 16-foot python named Ebanezer. The man was not strangled and may have died of a heart attack. He had snake bites on his arm and the snake suffered several knife wounds. In November 1980, an escaped 8-foot pet python bit and then smothered an infant girl in her crib in Dallas, Texas.
And there have been some near misses. In 2008, a man in Las Vegas killed his family’s 15-foot long Burmese python when the snake attacked his 13-year-old daughter. The man cut the snake’s head off after it bit his daughter’s leg and then coiled around her and her uncle, who was also working to free her. The pet usually lived in a locked tank, but somehow escaped and found the daughter’s room.
Though it hasn’t happened in the U.S., an attack on a human in the wild is not impossible, according to officials with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. If a python were cornered, fearful and defensive, it might try to attack. However, most snakes will try to slither away from trouble rather than stay and fight.
In general, pythons in the wild like to keep to themselves. They are easily camouflaged in their swampy Florida environment, which lets them to hide and then ambush their prey. They bite their dinner to hold it in place and then wrap around it to constrict and kill it.
Everglades pythons eat most anything: ducks, birds, rodents, rats, raccoons and possums, but scientists studying the snakes have found the remains of bobcats, white-tailed deer and alligators in python stomachs. Alligators can actually do some python damage too, but once the snakes get large, the alligators are no match. Because pythons are nonnative reptiles and a top predator in Florida, they are causing damage to imperiled species and even problems for native wildlife that isn’t threatened.
Currently, Burmese python owners in Florida are required to purchase an annual license for $100 in order to legally keep a snake, and when it grows to two inches in diameter, they are required to implant it with a microchip. Any python captured in the Florida wild is checked for a microchip, and if one is found, the owner is fined for illegally turning the snake loose in nature.
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Russian and Vietnamese scientists have announced their discovery of a new species of rattle-snake, which belongs to Protobothrops family, in the Trung Khanh Nature Reserve in the north-western province of Cao Bang, the Vietnam news agency reported Thursday.
Nguyen Thien Tao, who is in charge of amphibians and reptiles at the Vietnam Nature Museum, said this is the fourth species of rattle-snake of the Protobothrops family identified in Vietnam.
The three others are Protobothrops cornutus, P.jerdonii and P. mucrosquamatus.
The new species of rattle-snake is named Protobothrops trungkhanhensis Orlov, Ryabov, an endemic species found in only the Trung Khanh Nature Reserve in Cao Bang, Vietnam.
The snake is only 733mm in length, quite small compared to other Protobothrops species, with a small triangle-shaped head and small scales.
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Jeff Fobb has an unusual job description. He's an experienced python catcher.
In his job with the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, rarely a week goes by without him being called on to capture a python or other nonnative snake spotted slithering through a suburban backyard.
On a recent call, Fobb found a 10-foot Burmese python that had crawled into a cage with two domestic ducks. Fobb says the python ate the ducks and got stuck in the cage.
That was an easy job.
Python Breeding Ground
Fobb sees all kinds of exotic snakes in his job, but the one he sees the most is the Burmese python. There are a lot of them in South Florida.
The snakes, which can grow to 12 feet or more, have established a breeding population in the Everglades and appear to be spreading out from there.
The death of a toddler in Florida last month, strangled by an escaped pet python, spurred a number of new initiatives. The federal government is considering a ban on python imports; Florida is considering a ban on sales. And the state has begun issuing python hunting permits to experienced snake handlers.
Fobb volunteered for the new state program for fun and because he's fascinated by snakes. He goes out about once a week, patrolling sections of the Everglades on foot — covering eight to 10 miles in a typical evening.
So far, he has been one of the most successful python hunters. On one trip, he caught three Burmese python hatchlings, each about 2 feet long. On another expedition, he caught a juvenile python: 5 feet long and not yet full-grown.
On The Trail With Fobb
On this evening, he was out on the trail once again, accompanied by two friends and a reporter, traipsing through an area southeast of Everglades National Park.
Fortunately, the trails are well-established. Many are roads created when engineers dug the series of drainage canals that crisscross the area.
As he walks, the 43-year-old Fobb is always looking down."Usually you can find them crossing the trail or the levee," he says.
It's late afternoon, but already the mosquitoes are thick. The members of this hunting group are all wearing a thick layer of mosquito repellent, but that hardly seems to matter. Large grasshoppers called "lubbers," some over 6 inches long, jump out of their way.
Fobb says he often finds pythons warming themselves on the open trail in the late afternoon and early evening. There may be Burmese pythons in the surrounding brush, he says, but spotting them can be nearly impossible. The snakes have excellent camouflage — what's called "cryptic coloration."
"Even a big snake can hide in something like this," he says, pointing to the brush alongside the trail. "If you pass by too quickly, you'd never know he was there."
From Pets To Predators
The beginnings of Florida's python problem are murky. Fobb and many other experts date it back to 1992, when Hurricane Andrew roared through South Florida. Fobb believes that amid the devastation, many snakes kept as pets got free.
A few years later, people began seeing Burmese pythons in Everglades National Park, and by 2006, it was clear that the snakes had established a breeding population. Scientists found their first female python with a nest of eggs.
Federal and state wildlife managers grew concerned that the aggressive Asian snake might threaten native species of reptiles and mammals. A few years ago, a Burmese python that made its way to the Florida Keys was captured after it ate two Key Largo wood rats — fewer than 200 of which are known to be alive in the wild.
That showed Burmese pythons could travel; wildlife managers have begun to wonder how far they might spread. A map prepared by the U.S. Geological Survey a few years ago showed the theoretical range of Burmese pythons as global warming takes hold, and it's alarming. On the map, the python's potential habitat covers nearly one-third of the country, extending up the East Coast as far as Washington, D.C., and on the West Coast up to San Francisco.
As other researchers pointed out, that map didn't take into account terrain, development and a host of other factors that would inhibit the pythons' spread.
But what really drew the attention of wildlife managers and the public was the tragic death in July of a 2-year-old girl, killed by an 8 1/2-foot python that escaped from its cage in the middle of the night.
A Soft Spot For Pythons
Back in the Everglades, Fobb and his team slog through mud and periphyton — the thick mat of algae that covers much of the Everglades. If you're looking for pythons, Fobb says, you have to go where the water is, because the pythons' prey have to go and get water. But, he notes, it's the rainy season in the Everglades.
"This is a hard time of year to look, because there's pretty much water everywhere," he says.
A little later, the sun has gone down and the hunting party is walking with flashlights. Fobb looks for any movement; he listens for rustling in the brush alongside the trail.
After four hours of trekking, sweating and swatting mosquitoes through the Everglades, it starts to become clear why Fobb spends so much time out here looking for pythons. He has a soft spot for Burmese pythons, and he admits it.
"You know, they're not here because of anything they did," he says. "They were transported here by people, for pets. And for one reason or the other, they made their way to the Everglades."
Their crime? Like many people, animals and plant species, Burmese pythons came to Florida — and they like it here.
At Last, Snakes
Fobb and his friends find two small ringneck snakes, a couple of garters, a banded watersnake and a DeKay's snake. They also find toads, frogs and alligators, but no Burmese pythons.
Fobb is a little disappointed.
"We did see a lot of natives, which is a good thing. The native populations are OK, and that's a positive thing," he says.
Catching a python would have been nice. But for this reporter, at least, the day wasn't a total bust.
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