COLLIER COUNTY, Fla.– Pythons are a problem. These giant snakes are not supposed to be here. Many of them are offspring of pets that have been illegally released into the wetlands because they grew too big and dangerous for owners to manage.
These pythons can grow up to 26 feet long. For perspective, that’s about 3.5 Shaquille O’Neill’s laying flat on the ground.
These snakes are massive and they’re apex predators, which means they eat everything and nothing eats them. Even alligators are no match for the giant snakes. Something that strong can really throw our ecosystem out of whack.
Well, the only predator of the Python right now is us. The state will pay you to go out and hunt pythons.
So how do you control a monster that’s too strong to be tamed? You strike when it’s most vulnerable, in this case when it’s still an egg. Wildlife experts have found the perfect egg eater for the job.
This is the first time anyone has documented any animal preying on Python eggs, and it all happened right here in Southwest Florida at Big Cypress National Preserve. Experts said this is great news in the fight against the invasive species.
Resiliency is the capacity of an ecosystem to resist damage or recover quickly from disturbances.
“If this is maybe the first glimpse of the natives are starting to incorporate pythons and Python eggs into their diet, sort of making the ecosystem function a little bit more naturally than that’s fantastic,” research ecologist Andrea Currylow said.
You can see in the video here a male bobcat eating python eggs.
“We have another hunter out there!” Amy Siewe said.
The bobcat dares to come back time and time again, even while the huge snake sits on its nest.
“If the Python was not guarding a nest, the bobcat would’ve been dinner,” Siewe said.
The novel finds thrills in python hunters like Siere, who hunts the invasive species and had no idea these cats were helping them eliminate the problem.
“So what else is out there helping us behind the scenes that we don’t know about?” Siewe asked.
It was all captured on camera last summer when a US Geological Survey team set up a wildlife camera near a female they had tagged. They never expected to see the bobcat coming for python eggs.
“Besides the human factor, yea this is the very first documentation of any species filtering a Python nest,” Currylow said.
The reason this is so vital is because pythons have just devastated the Everglades.
“They’ve been implicated for the reduction of most mammal species almost near extrication of mammal species in Everglades National Park,” Currylow said.
“Because they’re not native to Florida, there’s not many animals that view them as food,” Siewe added.
“There’s an estimate of more than 100,000 pythons in our area, so it’s a big job but it’s got to get done,” python hunter Donna Kalil remarked.
“If we can get the nest taken out before they even get a chance, that’s fantastic, we can’t ask for more than that,” Siewe said.
Having nature on the side of the hunters, and an extra hand in the fight is crucial.
“It’s unlikely that all bobcats are going to run out there and get all the nests. Unfortunately, that’s most likely not going to happen, but it’s fantastic to see that it did in this case,” Kalil said.
Whether or not this is a regular occurance, there’s still a lot of research to be done.
“Every single python we take out is literally saving the lives of hundreds of our native animals so it is making a difference,” Siewe said.
The bobcat caught on camera potentially took out 64 apex predators.
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