Five meter pythons capture Florida and nobody can stop them.

Florida was captured by giant pythons growing to 5 meters and able to swallow an adult alligator. They came to the peninsula from another continent and were bred for years in the depths of forests and marshes. Now the reptiles have declared themselves, and no one knows how to stop their invasion. American hunters and scientists were powerless. All hope for hereditary snake catchers from India.

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«Lenta.ru report”Studied this story, which is more like a scenario for a Hollywood horror, but in fact is still real.

Python on a nuclear base

The dark-skinned guests from India stopped, squatted, and lit a bidi cigarette. The rest of the expedition could only wait. Two hunters from the Irul people flew to the United States in early January at the invitation of the University of Florida. Since then, they wandered through the swamps, accompanied by translators, biologists and a pair of Labradors.

There are legends about the hunters of Irul in their homeland. Many generations ago, they exterminated almost all boas that lived in the south of India and switched to cobras: they extract poison for making antidotes. In Florida, they were to hunt dark tiger pythons. Irul has never come across this species, but they know how to track down reptiles. This is a very rare skill, and American hunters definitely do not have it.

In the Everglades, Indian snake-eaters immediately plunged into a dense shrub and soon found traces of several large individuals. On this, however, the luck ended. The men made their way through the thickets for several hours, but did not encounter a single python and decided to pause. Dokuriv bidi, ilrula delayed the song. The translator explained to the scientists that they had altered an ancient spell: they added words about pythons and Florida.

After stopping, the group headed to the abandoned air defense base. At the height of the Cold War, Nike-Hercules missiles with nuclear warheads were deployed there. Indian guests noticed suspicious traces near the squat concrete bunkers that were empty from 1979 onwards. "Malai pampa!", - commented one of them. The translator turned to the biologists and said that there was a giant snake hiding there.

Irul got to one of the rocket mines and began to clear the roots of the wild ficus covering it from the inside. In the empty cable box could be seen the belly of a reptile. The men rushed to the other end of the box to prevent the snake from leaving, and found its tail there. Snake catchers set to work and retrieved from there an 5-meter female tiger python. It was followed by an 3-meter individual and a pair of pythons with a length of 2,5 meters.

The homeland of dark tiger pythons is not America, but Southeast Asia. They are found in Myanmar, Nepal, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and Malaysia, and are found in eastern India and southern China. Florida appeared on this list quite recently, and experts are still arguing about exactly how this happened. One thing is clear: the lovers of exotic animals are to blame.

In the early nineties, keeping tiger pythons at home became fashionable. Young individuals seem to be completely harmless, moreover, they are quieter than other large reptiles, and it is not that difficult to feed them. Zootvortsyy imported thousands of pythons into Miami and gave them for mere pennies. At one time, newborn snakes were available for $ 20-30.

Buyers rarely wondered what would happen to their pets. And then they begin to grow. The normal length of a dark tiger python is the 3,7 meter, and this is not the limit. 5-meter individuals are not at all rare, but the largest representative of this species has reached the 5,7 meter. It is possible that somewhere in tropical swamps pythons are hidden and longer, but there is no documentary evidence of this.

The grown-up python is hardly harmless. His jaws in several rows covered with sharp bent teeth. Reptiles, with a stranglehold, digs into prey, grabs it with its whole body and begins to squeeze. Even a small tiger python can inflict dangerous wounds, and adults can completely swallow a leopard. With a man, they will cope without difficulty.

Specialists from environmental organizations in Florida received reports of pythons seen in the wild almost every day. Some reptiles managed to sneak out of the pet stores, others were missed by breeders and reckless owners. Often the owners themselves threw them on the street when they realized what kind of pet they got.

To top it off, a powerful hurricane Andrew hit Florida. Of the destroyed menageries and research centers, about 15 thousands of wild animals fled. Many animals were caught, some died (some started a rumor that the monkeys walking around the streets were infected with HIV, and the locals shot them themselves), but some disappeared without a trace. The hurricane left no stone unturned in the reptile warehouse where hundreds of tiger pythons were kept. Where did they go - nobody knows.

Scientists suggest that some of them survived, managed to crawl to the marshes and hid.

Life will find a way out

Biologist Skip Snow, who works in the Everglades National Park, suspected that something was wrong. In the year 1995, he met in the depths of the forest not one, but several tiger pythons. They were not like the regular pet shop runaways. Those, as a rule, were adults, and he caught very young individuals. In addition, where did they come from in this wilderness? The pythons who have got to will seldom creep away far from the former owners.

Snow told colleagues about his doubts, but no one listened. “I was told that I did not find their nest. And not much has been seen, ”he recalls. He continued his search, but the next pair of pythons was noticed in the Everglades only in 2000 year. True, after that they began to be seen more and more often, but this did not convince the park administration.

According to Snow, his opponents had a thousand explanations why it is pointless to worry about pythons. Someone told him that he needed to wait for the cold weather, and the problem would be solved by itself. Thermophilic reptiles will not withstand the frost and will die. Another expert suggested that pythons would not take root in Florida. Even if they lay eggs, they will immediately be consumed by fire ants, which are abundant here.

The turning point came in 2003. A group of tourists noticed that something was happening in shallow water near the entrance to the park. They came closer and saw a hefty alligator, to the death of mating with multi-meter tiger python. The snake tried to strangle the predator, he did not give up and clenched her jaw.

The fight lasted almost a day and ended in a draw: the tired alligator eased his grip, and the python slipped into the swamp to heal wounds. By that time, photos and videos scattered on the Internet. About the Everglades pythons learned the whole world.

After the scandal, the leadership of the national park immediately remembered a bothersome employee who had warned for many years about the appearance of Asian reptiles in the park. Snow summoned and instructed to deal with the problem.

The biologist went deep into the park and began to find out what was going on there. A few months later, he found tiny python bars that had recently hatched from eggs - irrefutable proof that the pythons who settled in the Everglades multiply.

Snow brought one of the newborn snakes to a meeting of Florida environmental authorities. Professionals had one glance to understand what it means. “Just a week ago, pythons were not considered a problem at all,” recalls the biologist. “And after the meeting, they began to think that we can only surrender.”

Snow himself did not plan to surrender. He continued driving around the Everglades in his battered SUV, searching for pythons and supplying them with radio tags. To defeat the enemy, you need to know everything about him, and here scientists have nothing to brag about: the habits of dark tiger pythons are very poorly understood.

By the 2005 year in Florida, more than 2 thousands of individuals were caught, including a python 533 centimeters long (this record will not be beaten until 2012, when scientists caught a giant 536 centimeter female who was preparing to lay 87 eggs). Fire ants turned out to be nothing for them, and not only them: in the Everglades there was not a single predator able to cope with pythons from Asia.

But they did not disdain anything. Practically all Florida animals without exception were found in the belly of caught reptiles. Snow told reporters that he personally extracted from pythons the remains of mice, rats, rabbits, muskrats, raccoons, squirrels, lynxes, possums, otters, deer, ducks, herons, toadstools and — in one, especially tragic case — domestic cat named Francis.

Overseas reptiles almost completely destroyed the raccoons, possums and lynx. There are fewer other mammals in the eyes, and those areas where the snakes are most affected are especially affected. Scientists are surprised that not a single person has suffered so far. This is a rare luck, and it can not last forever.

Hunting big game

Over the years, 15 experts have experienced many methods of dealing with pythons. They tried to hunt them with dogs, set traps, even tried to let out the decoy females with RFID tags in the hope that the males from the whole area would crawl over to them. It turned out that the reptile does not take anything. They continue to grow and multiply at an amazing rate.

In the 2007 year, it was believed that no more than 5 thousands of dark tiger pythons live in the Everglades. By 2015, their number, according to the US National Park Service, has grown to 100 thousand. Scientists believe that in the foreseeable future, this species can capture the entire Florida, and then begin an offensive on other states.

The professor of ecology Frank Mazotti from the University of Florida proposed to approach the issue from the other side. If specialists do not know how to defeat giant reptiles, then why not involve amateurs in solving this problem? It certainly will not get worse from this, and no one knows - all of a sudden luck will smile on someone.

The scientist knocked out funding from the authorities, and in 2013, the Python Challenge was announced in the Everglades, the first public competition in python hunting. The person who will kill the maximum number of snakes was promised a reward - $ 1,5 thousands. For the capture of the longest python relied reassuring prize - $ 1 one thousand.

About one and a half thousand hunters from all over America gathered in the south of Florida. Everyone received a brochure describing the best methods of killing reptiles, where there were recommendations either to shoot the brain with a firearm or airgun, or to chop the head with a machete, and a warning that it was not very effective to beat a python with a cudgel.

The Soviets did not help: for the month of unfortunate hunters killed only 28 python. Last year the event was repeated. The result was better, but still not impressive: 102 individuals per 1060 participants. It was after this that Mazotti decided to find catchers who know how to kill snakes without a special brochure, and brought snake catchers from India to the Everglades.

In the first month of the 2 hunter-inula operation, 14 pythons were caught. "We calculate the effectiveness of different methods in pythons per dollar and pythons per hour," says biologist Ed Metzger, who works with Mazotti at the University of Florida. Attack snakes are the most expensive: $ 11 thousand for each individual caught. American volunteer hunters cost just $ 177 dollars per python, but terribly inefficient. Reptiles, harvested by Indian snake catchers, are more expensive - almost $ 5 thousand apiece, but this is not a problem: scientists hope to adopt their tactics and teach it to their compatriots.

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