http://www.justnews.com/news/18863783/detail.html
http://www.nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/states/florida/science/art24101.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95867920

With thanks

joseph grierson

Miami Herald 2/1/2009
BY CAMMY CLARK
cclark@MiamiHerald.com

KEY LARGO — In Python Catching 101, a few principles are paramount: Stay out of strike range. Don’t let a 12-footer wrap around your body and squeeze.

And beware of gushing snake poop — a harmless, but smelly, reptile defense mechanism, instructor Jeffrey Fobb warned a group of wanna-be snake catchers.

Armed with the vital new information — plus thick gloves, metal hooks to keep snakes at bay and a blanket to throw over the snakes’ heads — a dozen mostly fearless students last week learned how to capture the enormous natives of Southeast Asia that have begun invading the Florida Keys.

”As far as I know, this is the first class that teaches python wrangling, at least in Florida,” said Alison Higgins, land conservation manager with the Nature Conservancy.

The students joined the ”Python Patrol,” a rapid response program created by the nonprofit conservation organization, working with government agencies, to stop some of the world’s largest snakes from continuing their invasion south into the Keys, where they could wreak havoc on wildlife as they have in the Everglades.

”We’re concerned for the number of endangered species in the Keys, especially the Key Largo cottonmouse and Key Largo woodrat, whose population numbers are very low,” said Art Roybal, a senior biologist at the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. “Small mammals like that can be tasty items to a large snake, like a popcorn snack.”

The Python Patrol was formed in 2008 after seven Burmese pythons were found in Key Largo the year before. Pythons had been found in the Keys since the 1980s, but they were thought to be pets that escaped or were let loose.

GROWING PROBLEM

The seven in 2007 were different. Wildlife groups believe they bred in the wild and may have come from the nearby Everglades, over land or by swimming.

The first of the seven was discovered by researchers from Scotland’s University of St. Andrews who were tracking a Key Largo woodrat fitted with a radio-transmitter collar. The signal brought them to a seven-foot python, basking in the sun. A necropsy revealed the collared woodrat, and one other, in the snake’s belly.

”When the pythons came at us fast and furious — bam, bam, bam — we needed to do something,” Higgins said.

The Python Patrol also has an ”Eyes and Ears Team” of safety officers, meter readers, mail carriers, road crews and landscapers trained to identify pythons, which can grow to 23 feet, weigh up to 200 pounds and live for 25 years. Any sightings are called into the python hotline: 1-888-IVE-GOT-1.

”Our goal is, the first time you see a non-native snake is the last time,” Higgins said.

Anyone who calls in a sighting is asked to keep visual contact with the snake while a dispatcher at the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office calls the volunteer snake catchers. Rule of thumb: A snake of 10 feet or longer requires backup.

THE BOOT CAMP

The Nature Conservancy is training 25 responders to cover the islands from Key Largo to Key West. This was the second class, held at the Crocodile Lake National Wildlife Refuge in Key Largo.

Fobb, a lieutenant with Miami-Dade Fire Rescue’s Venom Response Team, brought several different types of pythons and an anaconda for his class of wildlife officers, aqueduct employees and mosquito-control workers to practice capturing and bagging.

”I try to bring ones with poor dispositions,” Fobb said. “You don’t want to give people an unrealistic idea of what to expect when you grab a snake in the wild.”