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The great alien python menace continues to ravage to the delicate ecosystem of the Everglades, and scientists hoped that last January’s historic cold snap would put a big dent in the invasive snake population. Unfortunately, most of those slimy bastards managed to survive the big chill. Not even Mother Nature herself can stop these snakes.
During January of 2010 there were 12 days in a row during which the temperature never rose above 50 degrees in the Everglades. It was the coldest such streak since 1952, and scientists hoped it would kill off many of the pythons.
While the cold killed off a number of local wildlife like manatees, corals, snook, sea turtles and North American crocodiles, the pythons managed to survive in large numbers.
According to the AP, 322 pythons were captured in the Everglades in 2010. That’s only a 10 percent drop from 2009, and some had hoped to see as much as a 50 percent drop.
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“Right now, the numbers aren’t all that different,” Everglades National Park biologist Skip Snow told the news wire. “We’re finding them in the same places we’ve been finding them.”
The python invasion of the Everglades is believed to have been started by abandoned pet snakes. Now that they are present in great numbers, the snakes present a danger to other wild life.
In hopes of putting some stop the menace Burmese, pythons and other “reptiles of concern” are no longer allowed to be kept as pets, while the state regularly issues python hunting permits.
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