Serial killer Pythons stalk Florida’s Everglades
Baku, February 1 (AZERTAC). Pesky pythons are wiping out mammals and birds - some of which are protected species - in Florida’s Everglades National Park, according to a new study.
Non-native Burmese pythons are chowing down on the local populace to such an extent that observations of many animals have declined by 99 per cent in the last eight years, and the poor old bunny rabbit hasn’t been seen at all.
The researchers also found that more mammals were missing in areas where the snakes were well-established than in places where they had only been seen recently.
The study focused on animals like rabbits, possums and foxes because their populations are easy to monitor and they tend to come close enough to roads to be spotted. But the biology boffins are also concerned about the species being conserved in the National Park, which are harder to keep an eye on because there’s less of them and they tend to be unevenly distributed.
"Approximately 25 per cent of all pythons found in the Park contain bird remains, and although quantifying impacts on birds is difficult, species such as rails, limpkins, grebes, herons, egrets, and the federally endangered wood stork may be particularly vulnerable to python predation," the study said.
The US has already taken steps against rapacious reptiles in the country, including the Burmese python.
Nobody is sure exactly how the snakes were introduced to American ecosystems, although it’s likely that many of the species arrived as pets and then escaped or were released into the wild.
The Burmese python is one of the six largest snakes in the world and can reach up to 7m (23ft) in length and a weight of up to 90 kilos (198lb).
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