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Burmese python © Amber Plank

Halting the spread of Burmese pythons out of the Everglades and into nearby conservation lands is the goal of the “Python Patrol,” a Nature Conservancy program first launched in the Florida Keys in 2008.

Regular citizens are taught to call in snake sightings and wildlife officials are trained to capture the snakes as part of Python Patrol’s efforts to prevent the spread of a breeding population and protect the often-rare animals these snakes feed on.

The Python Patrol was created when Burmese pythons were found swimming more than six miles from Everglades National Park to the Florida Keys and eating rare Keys woodrats.

The Patrol includes detectors – an Eyes and Ears Team made up of citizens who have opportunities to spot the invading snakes – and responders, who arrive at the sighting and scoop up the pythons.

Snake in the Road!

Workers such as FedEx and U.S. Postal Service drivers have joined the Eyes and Ears Team. Pythons often warm themselves on the roads so drivers make ideal spotters.

In the Keys, almost 90 participants—safety officers, meter readers, postal workers, road crews and landscape crews—have been trained to recognize the problem species.
Success in the Keys has prompted the Conservancy, with support from the National Park Service, to expand the program.

“Python Patrol is a perfect model for training both people who can report the snakes and people who can respond to them in order to stop expansion of invasive pythons from the Everglades,” says Cheryl Millett, the Conservancy biologist who oversees the Python Patrol.

“That’s why we’re focusing on setting up a response network on the leading edges of the invasion — to stop the spread — and also in the areas already infested,” Millett says.

In December 2010, 38 patrollers and responders were trained in South Florida to stop the spread of pythons into lands beyond Everglades National Park—infested with a population that some estimate at more than 30,000 snakes. The Everglades problem started more than a dozen years ago because of released pets.

When Eyes and Ears Team members sight a snake and call the python hotline, 1-888-IVE-GOT-1, a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission call center in South Florida quickly dispatches a trained responder from Monroe, Miami-Dade or Collier County.

Anyone in Florida can report python sightings to the hotline. Responders have followed up on reports as far north as Martin County. The response force is being built throughout South Florida, with more Python Patrol workshops being scheduled.

“Early-detection, rapid-response is the best way to stop them,” says Millett.

Because only one snake is being collected about every two months in the Keys, Conservancy scientists are confident the pythons aren’t breeding there – the program is working!

Safety Matters

“We ask the responders to consider safety first and then work to tire out the snake before they capture it. Luckily these pythons tire very quickly,” Millett says.

Capture techniques the responders are trained in include treadmilling — where the catcher drags his or her hands one after the other along the underbelly of the snake to make it think it’s getting away — and distraction of the snake by one person so another can capture it by surprise.

When the snake is tired, the capturer firmly grabs at the base of the head and avoids the writhing body getting wrapped around his or her legs.

In the Belly of a Python

The first Keys python was discovered alive in 2007 when two researchers studying federally endangered Key Largo woodrats were checking on the status of a male woodrat wearing a radio transmitter that had moved more than a mile from its original documented habitat.

The signal led the researchers — a University of St. Andrews graduate student and a volunteer assistant — to a 7-1/2-foot Burmese python sunning itself.

The contents of the captured snake’s stomach included not only the collared woodrat but another one as well.

While pythons aren’t known to attack people, they are voracious and indiscriminate eaters. To reach a full-grown length of about 13 feet, one python would need to eat nearly 200 pounds of food over five years. Some captured snakes have grown as large as 20 feet.

A March 2010 research paper reported that 25 different bird species, including the endangered wood stork, had been found in the digestive tracts of pythons in Everglades National Park, highlighting “the potential for considerable negative impact of this invasive species on native bird populations.”

But the good news is that Conservancy biologists don’t believe the pythons are breeding yet in the Florida Keys, since no smaller snakes have been found.

“These snakes have to be older before they disperse like this, so right now we have a good chance to prevent the next invasion," says Millett. "We are empowering a lot of new partners in the community to help.”

Policy of Prevention

The Conservancy’s work on this issue doesn’t stop with Python Patrol. We have long called for a more preventative approach to address the threat of invasive species.

The Conservancy has been working on the policy end since 2006, starting with support for the South Florida Water Management District’s petition to list the Burmese python as a federal injurious species.

In 2010, the Florida Legislature adopted a Conservancy-backed measure prohibiting personal possession of seven large constrictors and one large monitor lizard, formerly designated “reptiles of concern.”

These eight reptiles, including the Burmese python, are now classified as conditional species; people who owned these reptiles before the law went into effect and followed state permitting, chipping and caging requirements were allowed to keep the reptiles they already owned.

• Find out what to do when you can no longer care for an exotic pet.

Next Stop: Washington D.C.?

At the federal level, the Conservancy has supported efforts by Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) to advance legislation banning the importation and interstate commerce of the Burmese python.

This step — to include the python in the prohibitions of the federal Lacey Act used by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to prevent and manage invasive species — is needed to reduce the number of pythons released into the wild by pet owners who don't understand the responsibility caring for a large python entails.

This approach is significant, as the snakes are potentially more than just Florida's problem. The native climate of the invasive pythons — from Pakistan to Indonesia — is the same as about one-third of the United States, according to new “climate maps” released by the U.S. Geological Survey.

“It’s sad that it’s gotten this far — and unfortunately, there is no reason to think that they aren’t going to disperse farther north,” says Kris Serbesoff-King, The Nature Conservancy’s Florida invasive species program manager.

“Maybe they won’t get to Washington D.C., but their native habitat compares well to the Gulf region of the southern United States,” adds Serbesoff-King. “The positive thing is that in the Keys there is a high likelihood that we can be successful.”

More broadly, the Conservancy has strongly backed efforts to introduce a comprehensive approach that would proactively restrict trade in animals predicted to be highly invasive — before they become established.

In 2009, the Conservancy supported The Nonnative Wildlife Invasion Prevention Act (HR 669), which would have eventually alleviated the need for a petition-by-petition listing of injurious species — a process that takes an average of four years— and instead would have instituted a preventive approach.

The bill would have given the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service authority to proactively assess the risks associated with imported wildlife and prohibit the importation of species likely to be invasive in the United States.

“Prevention is always the most cost effective and efficient approach to addressing invasive species,” says Serbesoff-King. “It protects our native plants and animals and saves money by avoiding costly and difficult control efforts.”