Tuesday, January 31, 2012 12:31:05 AM
Pythons apparently wiping out Everglades mammals
University of Florida researchers hold a 162-pound Burmese python captured in Everglades National Park, Fla. Therese Walters, left, Alex Wolf and Michael R. Rochford, right, are holding the 15-foot snake shortly after the python ate a six-foot American alligator in 2009.
Scientists say pet snakes are bringing on an environmental nightmare in Florida
By Matt Sedensky
Associated Press
updated 1/30/2012 4:53:30 PM ET 2012-01-30T21:53:30
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A burgeoning population of huge pythons — many of them pets that were turned loose by their owners when they got too big — appears to be wiping out large numbers of raccoons, opossums, bobcats and other mammals in the Everglades, a study says.
The study [linked below], published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that sightings of medium-size mammals are down dramatically — as much as 99 percent, in some cases — in areas where pythons and other large, non-native constrictor snakes are known to be lurking.
Scientists fear the pythons could disrupt the food chain and upset the Everglades' environmental balance in ways difficult to predict.
"The effects of declining mammal populations on the overall Everglades ecosystem, which extends well beyond the national park boundaries, are likely profound," said John Willson, a research scientist at Virginia Tech University and co-author of the study.
Tens of thousands of Burmese pythons, which are native to Southeast Asia, are believed to be living in the Everglades, where they thrive in the warm, humid climate. While many were apparently released by their owners, others may have escaped from pet shops during Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and have been reproducing ever since.
Can swallow alligators
Burmese pythons can grow to be 26 feet long and more than 200 pounds, and they have been known to swallow animals as large as alligators. They and other constrictor snakes kill their prey by coiling around it and suffocating it.
The National Park Service has counted 1,825 Burmese pythons that have been caught in and around Everglades National Park since 2000. Among the largest so far was a 156-pound, 16.4-foot snake captured earlier this month.
For the study, researchers drove 39,000 miles along Everglades-area roads from 2003 through 2011, counting wildlife spotted along the way and comparing the results with surveys conducted on the same routes in 1996 and 1997.
The researchers found staggering declines in animal sightings: a drop of 99.3 percent among raccoons, 98.9 percent for opossums, 94.1 percent for white-tailed deer and 87.5 percent for bobcats. Along roads where python populations are believed to be smaller, declines were lower but still notable.
Rabbits and foxes, which were commonly spotted in 1996 and 1997, were not seen at all in the later counts. Researchers noted slight increases in coyotes, Florida panthers, rodents and other mammals, but discounted that finding because so few were spotted overall.
"The magnitude of these declines underscores the apparent incredible density of pythons in Everglades National Park," said Michael Dorcas, a professor at Davidson College in North Carolina and lead author of the study.
Prime suspect
Although scientists cannot definitively say the pythons are killing off the mammals, the snakes are the prime suspect. The increase in pythons coincides with the mammals' decrease, and the decline appears to grow in magnitude with the size of the snakes' population in an area. A single disease appears unlikely to be the cause since several species were affected.
The report says the effect on the overall ecosystem is hard to predict. Declines among bobcats and foxes, which eat rabbits, could be linked to pythons' feasting on rabbits. On the flip side, declines among raccoons, which eat eggs, may help some turtles, crocodiles and birds.
Scientists point with concern to what happened in Guam, where the invasive brown tree snake has killed off birds, bats and lizards that pollinated trees and flowers and dispersed seeds. That has led to declines in native trees, fish-eating birds and certain plants.
In 2010, Florida banned private ownership of Burmese pythons. Earlier this month, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced a federal ban on the import of Burmese pythons and three other snakes.
Salazar said Monday that the study shows why such restrictions were needed.
"This study paints a stark picture of the real damage that Burmese pythons are causing to native wildlife and the Florida economy," he said.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/46194981/ns/today-today_tech/t/pythons-apparently-wiping-out-everglades-mammals/ [with comment]
===
In Florida Everglades, pythons and anacondas dominate food chain
A Burmese python wraps around an American alligator in Everglades National Park, Fla. A National Academy of Science report indicates that the proliferation of pythons coincides with a sharp decrease of mammals in the park. “Pythons are wreaking havoc on one of America’s most beautiful, treasured and naturally bountiful ecosystems,” Marcia McNutt, director the U.S. Geological Survey, said in a statement.
Lori Oberhofer/ AP [additional photos at http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/pythons-kill-off-native-animals-in-everglades/2012/01/30/gIQAdawJdQ_gallery.html ]
By Darryl Fears, Monday, January 30, 6:37 PM, 2012
Every child learns this sad and basic truth about nature: The snake eats the rabbit.
But in the southernmost part of the Florida Everglades, things have taken a really wild turn. Pythons and anacondas are eating everything. The most common animals in Everglades National Park — rabbits, raccoons, opposums and bobcats — are almost gone, according to a study released Monday.
The snakes are literally fighting with alligators to sit atop the swamp’s food chain. In October, a 16-foot python was found resting after devouring a deer [ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45083208/ns/us_news-environment/t/-foot-python-found-florida-had-eaten-deer/ ].
“There aren’t many native mammals that pythons can’t choke down,” said Robert N. Reed, a research wildlife biologist at the U.S. Geologial Survey’s Fort Collins Science Center and a co-author of the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Officials can’t stop invasive pythons and anacondas from marauding in the Everglades, Reed said; they can only hope to contain them. “We’re trying to prevent spread to the Florida Keys and elsewhere north.”
The snakes were released by pet owners [ http://www.nps.gov/ever/naturescience/burmesepython.htm ] into the Everglades, where they started to breed. A female python can lay 100 eggs, though 54 is considered the norm. The study was described as the first to show pythons are causing the decline of native mammals in the Everglades.
When researchers struck out to count animals along a main road that runs to the southernmost tip of the park, more than 99 percent of raccoons were gone, along with nearly the same percentage of opossums and about 88 percent of bobcats. Marsh and cottontail rabbits, as well as foxes, could not be found.
The Obama administration recently banned the import and interstate commerce of Burmese python, two species of African pythons, and the yellow anaconda. But under pressure from the U.S. Association of Reptile Keepers, trade of the world’s longest snake, the reticulated python, and the boa constrictor were allowed to continue.
The reptile trade is a $2 billion business in the United States, according to the Humane Society. About 11 million reptiles were kept as pets in 2005, according to the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association. More reptiles are imported here than anywhere else in the world.
“Pythons are wreaking havoc on one of America’s most beautiful, treasured and naturally bountiful ecosystems,” Marcia McNutt, director of the USGS, said in a statement. “The only hope to halt further python invasion .?.?. is swift, decisive and deliberate human action.”
But officials do not yet know what can be done to slow the migration of pythons to other areas in Florida, and north to Georgia and Louisiana.
“We need more research into methods to limit the population spread,” said Michael F. Dorcas, one of the authors of the study, Severe Mammal Declines Coincide with Proliferation of Invasive Burmese Pythons in Everglades National Park [ http://www.bio.davidson.edu/people/midorcas/research/Pythons/Python.htm (actual study linked below)].
Researchers collected data through repeated night road surveys, traveling 39,000 miles for eight years ending in 2011, counting live animals and road kill. They compared the data with findings of similar surveys conducted in 1996 and 1997, according to a statement by the USGS.
Andrew Wyatt, president of the Reptile Keepers, which advocates on behalf of snake importers, dismissed the study.
“They play fast and loose with facts and make big jumps to conclusions,” Wyatt said. The authors contradict prior studies showing that mercury in the water has played a role in the deaths of small mammals, he said.
Wyatt also said pythons can only survive in southernmost Florida and that they would perish in extreme cold.
Dorcas, who participated in several studies of pythons and cold weather, said it’s not simple. Hundreds of adult pythons and hatchlings were captured and removed from the park months after a cold snap, he said.
Dorcas was also part of a study that removed 10 snakes from the Everglades to winter in South Carolina, where each died of exposure. But researchers noted that the snakes were far more tolerant of cold weather than they had thought.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service predicted that a new generations of Burmese pythons on the edge of their non-native range can adapt and “expand to colder climates [ http://www.fws.gov/home/feature/2012/pdfs/ColdWeather.pdf ].”
© 2012 The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/in-florida-everglades-pythons-and-anacondas-dominate-food-chain/2012/01/30/gIQAULTVdQ_story.html [with comments]
===
Severe mammal declines coincide with proliferation of invasive Burmese pythons in Everglades National Park
January 30, 2012
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/01/23/1115226109.full.pdf+html ; http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/01/23/1115226109.abstract
University of Florida researchers hold a 162-pound Burmese python captured in Everglades National Park, Fla. Therese Walters, left, Alex Wolf and Michael R. Rochford, right, are holding the 15-foot snake shortly after the python ate a six-foot American alligator in 2009.
Scientists say pet snakes are bringing on an environmental nightmare in Florida
By Matt Sedensky
Associated Press
updated 1/30/2012 4:53:30 PM ET 2012-01-30T21:53:30
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A burgeoning population of huge pythons — many of them pets that were turned loose by their owners when they got too big — appears to be wiping out large numbers of raccoons, opossums, bobcats and other mammals in the Everglades, a study says.
The study [linked below], published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that sightings of medium-size mammals are down dramatically — as much as 99 percent, in some cases — in areas where pythons and other large, non-native constrictor snakes are known to be lurking.
Scientists fear the pythons could disrupt the food chain and upset the Everglades' environmental balance in ways difficult to predict.
"The effects of declining mammal populations on the overall Everglades ecosystem, which extends well beyond the national park boundaries, are likely profound," said John Willson, a research scientist at Virginia Tech University and co-author of the study.
Tens of thousands of Burmese pythons, which are native to Southeast Asia, are believed to be living in the Everglades, where they thrive in the warm, humid climate. While many were apparently released by their owners, others may have escaped from pet shops during Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and have been reproducing ever since.
Can swallow alligators
Burmese pythons can grow to be 26 feet long and more than 200 pounds, and they have been known to swallow animals as large as alligators. They and other constrictor snakes kill their prey by coiling around it and suffocating it.
The National Park Service has counted 1,825 Burmese pythons that have been caught in and around Everglades National Park since 2000. Among the largest so far was a 156-pound, 16.4-foot snake captured earlier this month.
For the study, researchers drove 39,000 miles along Everglades-area roads from 2003 through 2011, counting wildlife spotted along the way and comparing the results with surveys conducted on the same routes in 1996 and 1997.
The researchers found staggering declines in animal sightings: a drop of 99.3 percent among raccoons, 98.9 percent for opossums, 94.1 percent for white-tailed deer and 87.5 percent for bobcats. Along roads where python populations are believed to be smaller, declines were lower but still notable.
Rabbits and foxes, which were commonly spotted in 1996 and 1997, were not seen at all in the later counts. Researchers noted slight increases in coyotes, Florida panthers, rodents and other mammals, but discounted that finding because so few were spotted overall.
"The magnitude of these declines underscores the apparent incredible density of pythons in Everglades National Park," said Michael Dorcas, a professor at Davidson College in North Carolina and lead author of the study.
Prime suspect
Although scientists cannot definitively say the pythons are killing off the mammals, the snakes are the prime suspect. The increase in pythons coincides with the mammals' decrease, and the decline appears to grow in magnitude with the size of the snakes' population in an area. A single disease appears unlikely to be the cause since several species were affected.
The report says the effect on the overall ecosystem is hard to predict. Declines among bobcats and foxes, which eat rabbits, could be linked to pythons' feasting on rabbits. On the flip side, declines among raccoons, which eat eggs, may help some turtles, crocodiles and birds.
Scientists point with concern to what happened in Guam, where the invasive brown tree snake has killed off birds, bats and lizards that pollinated trees and flowers and dispersed seeds. That has led to declines in native trees, fish-eating birds and certain plants.
In 2010, Florida banned private ownership of Burmese pythons. Earlier this month, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced a federal ban on the import of Burmese pythons and three other snakes.
Salazar said Monday that the study shows why such restrictions were needed.
"This study paints a stark picture of the real damage that Burmese pythons are causing to native wildlife and the Florida economy," he said.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/46194981/ns/today-today_tech/t/pythons-apparently-wiping-out-everglades-mammals/ [with comment]
===
In Florida Everglades, pythons and anacondas dominate food chain
A Burmese python wraps around an American alligator in Everglades National Park, Fla. A National Academy of Science report indicates that the proliferation of pythons coincides with a sharp decrease of mammals in the park. “Pythons are wreaking havoc on one of America’s most beautiful, treasured and naturally bountiful ecosystems,” Marcia McNutt, director the U.S. Geological Survey, said in a statement.
Lori Oberhofer/ AP [additional photos at http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/pythons-kill-off-native-animals-in-everglades/2012/01/30/gIQAdawJdQ_gallery.html ]
By Darryl Fears, Monday, January 30, 6:37 PM, 2012
Every child learns this sad and basic truth about nature: The snake eats the rabbit.
But in the southernmost part of the Florida Everglades, things have taken a really wild turn. Pythons and anacondas are eating everything. The most common animals in Everglades National Park — rabbits, raccoons, opposums and bobcats — are almost gone, according to a study released Monday.
The snakes are literally fighting with alligators to sit atop the swamp’s food chain. In October, a 16-foot python was found resting after devouring a deer [ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45083208/ns/us_news-environment/t/-foot-python-found-florida-had-eaten-deer/ ].
“There aren’t many native mammals that pythons can’t choke down,” said Robert N. Reed, a research wildlife biologist at the U.S. Geologial Survey’s Fort Collins Science Center and a co-author of the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Officials can’t stop invasive pythons and anacondas from marauding in the Everglades, Reed said; they can only hope to contain them. “We’re trying to prevent spread to the Florida Keys and elsewhere north.”
The snakes were released by pet owners [ http://www.nps.gov/ever/naturescience/burmesepython.htm ] into the Everglades, where they started to breed. A female python can lay 100 eggs, though 54 is considered the norm. The study was described as the first to show pythons are causing the decline of native mammals in the Everglades.
When researchers struck out to count animals along a main road that runs to the southernmost tip of the park, more than 99 percent of raccoons were gone, along with nearly the same percentage of opossums and about 88 percent of bobcats. Marsh and cottontail rabbits, as well as foxes, could not be found.
The Obama administration recently banned the import and interstate commerce of Burmese python, two species of African pythons, and the yellow anaconda. But under pressure from the U.S. Association of Reptile Keepers, trade of the world’s longest snake, the reticulated python, and the boa constrictor were allowed to continue.
The reptile trade is a $2 billion business in the United States, according to the Humane Society. About 11 million reptiles were kept as pets in 2005, according to the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association. More reptiles are imported here than anywhere else in the world.
“Pythons are wreaking havoc on one of America’s most beautiful, treasured and naturally bountiful ecosystems,” Marcia McNutt, director of the USGS, said in a statement. “The only hope to halt further python invasion .?.?. is swift, decisive and deliberate human action.”
But officials do not yet know what can be done to slow the migration of pythons to other areas in Florida, and north to Georgia and Louisiana.
“We need more research into methods to limit the population spread,” said Michael F. Dorcas, one of the authors of the study, Severe Mammal Declines Coincide with Proliferation of Invasive Burmese Pythons in Everglades National Park [ http://www.bio.davidson.edu/people/midorcas/research/Pythons/Python.htm (actual study linked below)].
Researchers collected data through repeated night road surveys, traveling 39,000 miles for eight years ending in 2011, counting live animals and road kill. They compared the data with findings of similar surveys conducted in 1996 and 1997, according to a statement by the USGS.
Andrew Wyatt, president of the Reptile Keepers, which advocates on behalf of snake importers, dismissed the study.
“They play fast and loose with facts and make big jumps to conclusions,” Wyatt said. The authors contradict prior studies showing that mercury in the water has played a role in the deaths of small mammals, he said.
Wyatt also said pythons can only survive in southernmost Florida and that they would perish in extreme cold.
Dorcas, who participated in several studies of pythons and cold weather, said it’s not simple. Hundreds of adult pythons and hatchlings were captured and removed from the park months after a cold snap, he said.
Dorcas was also part of a study that removed 10 snakes from the Everglades to winter in South Carolina, where each died of exposure. But researchers noted that the snakes were far more tolerant of cold weather than they had thought.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service predicted that a new generations of Burmese pythons on the edge of their non-native range can adapt and “expand to colder climates [ http://www.fws.gov/home/feature/2012/pdfs/ColdWeather.pdf ].”
© 2012 The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/in-florida-everglades-pythons-and-anacondas-dominate-food-chain/2012/01/30/gIQAULTVdQ_story.html [with comments]
===
Severe mammal declines coincide with proliferation of invasive Burmese pythons in Everglades National Park
January 30, 2012
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/01/23/1115226109.full.pdf+html ; http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/01/23/1115226109.abstract
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