'Python Patrol' targets giant snakes of South Florida

[depakid]

Members of the Python Patrol show off a giant snake that stretched more than 20 feet.
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Utility workers, park rangers and others who work outside were trained in how to catch the snakes.
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Juan Lopez reads meters with one eye and looks for snakes with the other. Lopez is a member of the "Python Patrol," a team of utility workers, wildlife officials, park rangers and police trying to keep Burmese pythons from gaining a foothold in the Florida Keys. Officials say the pythons -- which can grow to 20 feet long and eat large animals whole -- are being ditched by pet owners in the Florida Everglades, threatening the region's endangered species and its ecosystem.

"Right now, we have our fingers crossed that they haven't come this far yet, but if they do, we are prepared," Lopez said.

Burmese Pythons are rarely seen in the middle Florida Keys, where Lopez works. The Nature Conservancy wants to keep it that way. he Python Patrol program was started by Alison Higgins, the Nature Conservancy's Florida Keys conservation manager. She describes it as an "early detection, rapid response" program made up of professionals who work outside.

"If we can keep them from spreading and breeding, then we're that much more ahead of the problem," Higgins said. Utility workers, wildlife officials and police officers recently attended a three-hour class about capturing the enormously large snakes. Lt. Jeffrey L. Fobb of the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Venom Response Unit taught the participants how to capture pythons. "There's no immutable laws of snake catching. It's what works," Fobb said as he demonstrated catching a snake with hooks, bags, blankets and his hands.

"We're doing it in the Florida Keys because we have a lot to protect," Higgins said. "The Burmese pythons that are coming out of the Everglades are eating a lot of our endangered species and other creatures, and we want to make sure they don't breed here." Where the snakes are breeding is just north of the Keys in Everglades National Park. An estimated 30,000 Burmese pythons live in the park.

More: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/US/03/30/python.patrol/?iref=mpstoryview

[Dennis Donovan]

1. "This snake has ceased to be!"

"It's pining for the fjords!":rofl:

Sorry, your subject line inspired a Python-esque response.:D

[pscot]

2. Sounds to me like the snake is already out of the bag

"Where the snakes are breeding is just north of the Keys in Everglades National Park. An estimated 30,000 Burmese pythons live in the park."

[Rhiannon12866]

3. ?

:evilgrin: