TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Florida's newest problem is roughly the circumference of a telephone pole. It has no toes. It snacks on rabbits. It's the Burmese python. And in South Florida, the problem is growing in number and in feet.
"Last year, we caught 95 pythons," said Skip Snow, a biologist with Florida Everglades National Park. That's not counting the 13-footer that exploded after trying to eat an alligator, or two others that got loose and ate a Siamese cat and a turkey.
To keep the problem from sliding further out of control, state Rep. Ralph Poppell, R-Titusville, wants to add Burmese pythons to Florida's list of regulated reptiles. His bill (HB 1459) could force python buyers to complete state training, buy a license and face jail time if they let their snakes loose.
The giant, unwanted snakes take other animals' homes and prey on fragile native species, Snow said. They're also the products of impulse shopping gone very wrong. "People buy them when they're small," he said. "I've seen them as cheap as 20 bucks in flea markets."
The inch-long hatchlings start off cute. Then they hit puberty.
"By the end of the year, they're seven feet long," Snow said. "By the end of two years, they're 10 feet long. And that's more snake than anyone can handle."
Overwhelmed with pets that eat more than they do, python owners decide to release their snakes into the wild. It's so common in the Everglades, Snow's had to start a python hot line.
And there the Asian natives breed and find a comfortable home in the Everglades' water, heat and vegetation. They have no predators.
Pythons have also discovered suburbia, said Capt. Ernie Jillson, who helps run the Miami-Dade County fire department's snake squad. They catch around 20 pythons a year.
Three years ago, a 15-footer stopped traffic when he spread himself across a four-lane road. Last year, another 15-footer gave a 60-year-old woman quite the jolt when she walked outside to find the snake sunbathing on her patio. And rescue workers had to save a cat from the 10-foot python that was chasing it around the backyard pool.
Lawmaker Poppell says he's no snake lover and doesn't understand people's fascination with the slithery creatures.
"How can you want something for a pet that looks at you when it's hungry?" he said. "I don't want something to look at me as food, I'd rather they (pets) come to me for food."
John Lacorte, a Flagler County teacher, disagrees. His students clamor to earn their way into his class's "snake crew," where they clean, handle and care for 27 nonvenemous snakes — including Grave Digger, a 3-foot albino Burmese python named after a character in Shakespeare's Hamlet.
"We have Macbeth, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet. It's like a badge of honor for the kids" to get snake duty, Lacorte said. "They're not gross. They're not oily. They're as dry as putting on a leather jacket. They're one of the most timid creatures that you'll ever see on this earth. Some kids find them really cool; we've never had anyone that came in and walked out afraid of snakes."
They might disagree on pet choices, but Poppell and Lacorte — as well at least one environmental group and one snake breeder — agree on this point: Florida must get around this problem before it gets around, well, Floridians.
"They aren't known to hunt people, but they are known to kill people," Snow said, citing cases where python owners made mistakes while handling their pets. In Naples, one driver crashed his PT Cruiser into a barricade when the pet snake he'd wrapped around his neck bit him. He jumped out of the car, wrestled with the snake and then drove off.
So far, Snow's python problems have only involved other animals, but he fears the day a driving visitor mistakes a sunbathing snake for a log, swerves and hits a tree. Plus, pythons may be nonvenemous, "but they have a mouthful of teeth," he said.
Even without human encounters, Snow has enough to deal with. When they're not sunbathing, pythons are hunting precious species like wading birds, cotton rats and even bobcats. When they're not eating, pythons are taking homes away from other hole and log dwellers in the park, or spreading diseases that could kill native snakes.
And they're breeding. Around the time Poppell introduced his bill this spring, the snakes' mating season ended. Now, as the bill awaits at least one more committee vote in the House, females are nesting. Should Poppell's proposal become law by early May, Snow said, it will be just in time to see the new babies hatch.
"Last year, we caught 95 pythons," said Skip Snow, a biologist with Florida Everglades National Park. That's not counting the 13-footer that exploded after trying to eat an alligator, or two others that got loose and ate a Siamese cat and a turkey.
To keep the problem from sliding further out of control, state Rep. Ralph Poppell, R-Titusville, wants to add Burmese pythons to Florida's list of regulated reptiles. His bill (HB 1459) could force python buyers to complete state training, buy a license and face jail time if they let their snakes loose.
The giant, unwanted snakes take other animals' homes and prey on fragile native species, Snow said. They're also the products of impulse shopping gone very wrong. "People buy them when they're small," he said. "I've seen them as cheap as 20 bucks in flea markets."
The inch-long hatchlings start off cute. Then they hit puberty.
"By the end of the year, they're seven feet long," Snow said. "By the end of two years, they're 10 feet long. And that's more snake than anyone can handle."
Overwhelmed with pets that eat more than they do, python owners decide to release their snakes into the wild. It's so common in the Everglades, Snow's had to start a python hot line.
And there the Asian natives breed and find a comfortable home in the Everglades' water, heat and vegetation. They have no predators.
Pythons have also discovered suburbia, said Capt. Ernie Jillson, who helps run the Miami-Dade County fire department's snake squad. They catch around 20 pythons a year.
Three years ago, a 15-footer stopped traffic when he spread himself across a four-lane road. Last year, another 15-footer gave a 60-year-old woman quite the jolt when she walked outside to find the snake sunbathing on her patio. And rescue workers had to save a cat from the 10-foot python that was chasing it around the backyard pool.
Lawmaker Poppell says he's no snake lover and doesn't understand people's fascination with the slithery creatures.
"How can you want something for a pet that looks at you when it's hungry?" he said. "I don't want something to look at me as food, I'd rather they (pets) come to me for food."
John Lacorte, a Flagler County teacher, disagrees. His students clamor to earn their way into his class's "snake crew," where they clean, handle and care for 27 nonvenemous snakes — including Grave Digger, a 3-foot albino Burmese python named after a character in Shakespeare's Hamlet.
"We have Macbeth, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet. It's like a badge of honor for the kids" to get snake duty, Lacorte said. "They're not gross. They're not oily. They're as dry as putting on a leather jacket. They're one of the most timid creatures that you'll ever see on this earth. Some kids find them really cool; we've never had anyone that came in and walked out afraid of snakes."
They might disagree on pet choices, but Poppell and Lacorte — as well at least one environmental group and one snake breeder — agree on this point: Florida must get around this problem before it gets around, well, Floridians.
"They aren't known to hunt people, but they are known to kill people," Snow said, citing cases where python owners made mistakes while handling their pets. In Naples, one driver crashed his PT Cruiser into a barricade when the pet snake he'd wrapped around his neck bit him. He jumped out of the car, wrestled with the snake and then drove off.
So far, Snow's python problems have only involved other animals, but he fears the day a driving visitor mistakes a sunbathing snake for a log, swerves and hits a tree. Plus, pythons may be nonvenemous, "but they have a mouthful of teeth," he said.
Even without human encounters, Snow has enough to deal with. When they're not sunbathing, pythons are hunting precious species like wading birds, cotton rats and even bobcats. When they're not eating, pythons are taking homes away from other hole and log dwellers in the park, or spreading diseases that could kill native snakes.
And they're breeding. Around the time Poppell introduced his bill this spring, the snakes' mating season ended. Now, as the bill awaits at least one more committee vote in the House, females are nesting. Should Poppell's proposal become law by early May, Snow said, it will be just in time to see the new babies hatch.
