Pets Gone Wild | Retro Report | The New York Times

they have a lot to talk about tonight in a Fort Lauderdale Florida neighborhood this was the day of the snake it was the snake that made national news 20 feet 250 pounds and somebody's pet but these massive snakes imported from Asia are more than a backyard nuisance 20 years ago there were no pythons or boa constrictors in the Florida Everglades today they seem to own the place there's one of them okay yeah yelling they're multiplying unchecked in the wilds of Florida the pythons are expanding outward in all directions this isn't the case of a let loose goldfish this is something that can grow up to 20 feet and will eat anything in its sight at another invader tonight to the list thousands of foreign pets are now ranging free in our midst this place has become the Ellis Island of exotic species how did this happen and how afraid should we really be this is a 12 foot long Burmese python caught by a port st. Lucie police sergeant in the middle of a neighborhood encounters with wayward snakes ones pets in someone's home have become a regular feature on the news in reptile loving Florida today oh my god that's on our street yes yes it was more than two million constrictor snakes pythons boas and anacondas have been imported into the US since the 1970s non-venomous but still fearsome they kill their prey by strangling it then eating it whole despite all that the Burmese python bred in a rainbow of colors caught on with rock stars and regular folks it used to kind of be the biker long-haired tattooed you know rebellious guy now it can be a lawyer a doctor really the person next door could be keeping reptiles and often the person next door doesn't understand what they've gotten into they buy them you know 12 14 inches long but then three or four years later they realize you know it's a 7 8 foot snake and they can't take care of it anymore snakes roaming neighborhoods are one thing but how did they end up 80 miles from Miami in a remote region of Everglades National Park beginning in the pre Instagram 1980s park visitors filled out cards to report sightings of snakes that were bigger than anything they'd seen before one time I got a call from Tom Hammond and it was about an 11-footer a female didn't have a mark on her and when I opened her up she was just full of fat no parasites no nothing this was somebody's pet clearly a pet most likely dumped there from the trunk of a car the problem isn't just pests Hurricane Andrew destroyed snake hatcheries in the Miami area sending hundreds of baby snakes into the Everglades by 2000 machaca had published a study warning that Burmese pythons were reproducing in the southern end of the park at the park it was not met with a sense of urgency that I felt it wanted it is in a way a ticking time bomb will it be relatively localized will it explode which lo and behold a dip in the four years after mashach --is warning Python captures around the park went from two a year to 70 park officials were caught behind the curve we couldn't go to the Home Depot and buy a can of snake be gone and just figure out what the worth the right dosage was to kill it we didn't have those tools those tools weren't there at the state level Florida Fish and Wildlife officials hesitated to ban the sale of the pythons a move that would hurt the state's 100 million dollar reptile industry hoping the snakes might die off on their own we keep saying well let's just make sure we get this right you know we don't want to ruffle any feathers let's make sure we really know that this is gonna be a problem before we go and really impact somebody's livelihood where are we taking it seriously I would my personal know what force the issue onto everyone's radar were clashes between pythons and the parks top predator the alligator after a 30 hour exhaustive battle a draw what you're looking at is a 13 foot Python that ate an entire six-foot alligator before bursting that was sort of the very first very public display of his two rather large reptiles and it's kind of a turning point for for both management as well as the media I think to pay attention and pay attention they did an alien species is invading the swampland of America as Python captures soar to three hundred sixty seven in one year so did media speculation about how big and scary the problem was snakes are eating Florida 150,000 183 thousand over 200,000 on the lose traveling faster than you might think a clear and present danger to people what would come out would be big snake be afraid adding to the sense of panic a tragedy in 2009 and I'm a one day me place our state we have a Burmese python is about bro footlong she got out of the gate but I got a baby crib there I go there again the autopsy report revealed the snake had in fact strangled two year old Cheyenne ax hair and may have tried to eat her there have been ten Americans strangled by constrictor since 1990 all victims in homes were snakes were kept as pets pythons have never attacked a tourist in the Everglades but that didn't stop park visitors from being spooked I was afraid that there would be snakes everywhere pythons and everything the real danger Park biologists argued was not to humans but to wildlife with few natural predators to keep them in check pythons were eating their way through the ecosystem devastating populations of native birds and mammals including a 76 pound deer we know very little about them in their native habitat so it makes it that much harder when they become an invasive species she's not happy with their 10 billion dollar effort to restore the Everglades under threat by federal and state agencies began spending a million dollars a year on Python control - I'm just trying to put it in listing a Python sniffing dog implanting transmitters and so-called Judas snakes to lead scientists to mating areas and setting traps but the efforts barely made a dent the snake set new records for length and four eggs seventy nine and one female ready one two with Florida still allowing the sale of pythons as pets the federal government in 2008 began considering a ban on imports of Burmese pythons and eight other giant snakes the reptile industry argued it would kill jobs in their two billion dollar national industry it will destroy American businesses and it will damage hundreds of thousands of people economically there's no second amendment that says I can keep a Python but you take the Burmese python away the next thing you know you're taking a leopard gecko away and then maybe your dog or cat you know where does it stop the action that we're taking today is a milestone for us and the protection of the Everglades after years of debate while pythons expanded their range the government in 2012 banned imports of the Burmese python and ultimately seven other giant snakes one newspaper expressed skepticism saying it's closing the reptile cage after the snakes have already slithered out but pythons are not the only escaped or release pets that have become a public menace scientists are tracking an exotic invader a small fish that has become one of the biggest bullies in the Atlantic Ocean venomous lionfish imported from Asia for aquariums are now preying on native fish from Florida to Rhode Island they flown up transformers building massive nests on powerlines exotic birds from South America are causing headaches for power companies and Florida's latest pet gone while it's a cold-blooded killer eating its way through the Everglades a four foot lizard with a nasty bite the Argentine tegu there is nothing similar to this lizard in Florida so when they get to a place like this is kind of like walking into an untouched banquet table tegus are eating the eggs of native birds and reptiles scientists are trying to contain it through trapping but the lizard is already reproducing in three counties and spreading to the west of us where Tigers are heading towards rapidly is one of the largest nesting areas for the threatened American crocodile the species that we brought back from the brink of extinction now baby threatened again by an invasive species in Florida where there are now more non-native lizards than native ones officials say stopping the tegu is a top priority and yet tegus are still for sale as pets virtually guaranteeing more releases or escapes into the wild I think overall the problem that we're having is that we as human beings do not react until we've demonstrated there's a real problem when you get to that point where you know you have trouble then it's too late to fix it what do you guys think your chances are finding a Python good Oh real good yeah during a public bounty hunt in the Everglades in 2013 hunters bagged a disappointing 68 steaks at the 100,000 estimated to be there yo keep hunting I just popped a temper wrong now the hunt along with the dogs and the transmitters has been discontinued after spending 10 years and more than 6 million dollars fighting the Python Wars the snakes appear to be winning we don't know what to bring to the battle right we really don't yet have all that figured out battling invasive animals including those that arrive by way of the pet trade costs taxpayers an estimated 50 billion dollars a year we really should have a proactive approach and we still don't nobody's screening all the non-native wildlife that's being imported into United States to say which one's going to be the next fat actor I mean that that right there just just floors me maybe the way to put it is that the lesson learned is that no one's learn their lesson how's that for an awful lesson learned you Oh Oh

Channel: The New York Times

Views: 630,781

Rating: 4.7082648 out of 5

Keywords: The New York Times, NY Times, NYT, Times Video, nytimes.com, news, newspaper, feature, reporting, pets, Snake (Animal), pet snake, asian snake, Python (Programming Language), florida snakes, Boa Constrictor (Organism Classification), snake problem, florida snake problem, Invasive Species (Literature Subject), anaconda, Britney Spears (Celebrity), Everglades (Geographical Feature), Miami (City/Town/Village), Burmese Python (Organism Classification), everglades snake

Id: yUBA_6nA_Sk

Length: 12min 4sec (724 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 06 2015

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Original title: Pets Gone Wild | Retro Report | The New York Times