And with few natural predators, their numbers show no sign of diminishing. The snakes breed prolifically, laying anywhere from a half-dozen to 100 eggs per nest. Paid contractors and others have killed roughly 9,000 snakes since 2017, when the hunting program started. No one knows how many of these giant snakes now infest South Florida, but estimates range between 100,000 and more than a million, said Kevin Donmoyer, an invasive-species biologist at Everglades National Park. Now these invasive species threaten to overwhelm efforts to restore the Everglades, with none more voracious than Burmese pythons. As suburbs mushroomed nearby, humans introduced an array of exotic species - including Argentine tegus, giant African land snails and green iguanas - into the park’s marshes, hardwood hammocks and other habitats. Over many decades, farmers, engineers and developers ditched and drained much of the 4,000 square miles of the Everglades, with conservation only taking hold after it became a national park in 1947. They were destroying this beautiful, wonderful place,” she said, referring to the Everglades, the nation’s only subtropical wilderness and one of its most degraded ecosystems.
#GARY THE SNAIL PROFESSIONAL#
Seeing a python eat the region’s apex predator was too much, she said, prompting her to transition from real estate agent to professional serpent killer. In 2005, the National Park Service released a series of photos showing a gator that had busted out of the stomach of a dead 13-foot python. The images went viral, and inspired many of the hunters now making a career of culling pythons. They’ll even attack and eat the region’s top predators - alligators and crocodiles - when they can stomach them. They also go after amphibians, reptiles and wading birds, including some beloved and endangered species, such as the wood stork. Studies indicate pythons have annihilated the Everglades’ mammal population, with some species - such as marsh rabbits and foxes - entirely gone. They’ve become a scourge in the Everglades of South Florida since one was first spotted in the 1970s - ferocious, fecund and indiscriminate in their feeding behavior.
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