Capturing Burmese Pythons

https://www.insecthobbyist.com/10-best-snake-traps-2019/

A similar one-way-only concept is used with traditional wooden lobster traps. Here in Ontario all snakes are harmless, with the exception of the Massassauga rattler, which has a limited habitat in the rocky country east of Georgian Bay. Visiting the area, saw many of these signs, so sightings must be common, but no rattlers for us.

Get this right and you could make a tidy sum:-

"registered hunters earn a minimum wage rate for up to 10 hours of work a day, plus a bonus for their catch: $50 for each python measuring up to four feet plus $25 more for each foot measured above four feet."

The skin is also worth quite a lot so those "one way pins" would be good if they didn't damage the skin.

It looks as though a lot of effort is going into hunting, but, not a lot of thought has gone into traps.

A lot of good ideas using glue traps,but they are no good outside.What I am imagining is a 6 inch diameter PVC pipe,about 6 ft long leading to a larger cage,6ft or more length and width.

The inside of the pipe has flexible pins,made of perhaps nylon or thick banding material, or even green wood dowels slanting towards the trap.

Even bristles could possibly be used.The opening would only appear to be 2 inches or so,but would open up under pressure to the full diameter,letting the snake enter,but he could not get out because the pins or flat straps would prevent it.The cage could hold many snakes,and could be baited with female scent.

Once upon a time, my great uncles made turtle traps like this,cutting an oval hole in a barrel end,and drilling 1/2 inch holes around the perimeter,and putting green oak sticks in the holes.They would flex to allow the turtle in,but were pointed inward,so the turtle could not get out.This was many years ago,and the turtles were sold to a soup company.

It worked well for turtles,it might work good for snakes too.

A high tech addition might even keep count of how many snakes were captured,and send a wireless signal to notify someone to check it.

Are they good to eat? Get a few "high fashion" chefs to promete them and python meat will be $$$ / lb and they will be hunted to extinction.

I don't know what they taste like but this idea has a lot of merit. When I came to Florida about 40 years ago there were still a few indian "swamp people" in the area. Their level of comfort with snakes and alligators was unbelievable. With modern government rules I don't know if anyone can still live off the swamps. Now-a-days the swamps are empty Monday thru Friday and full of yahoos drinking beer and racing air boats on Saturday and Sunday. If there is enough long-term money in snakes we will start to see them migrating from the swamp to the dinner table.

Unfortunately the pythons are at the top (apart from humans) of the food chain, and, there's a lot of mercury in Florida.

I find that misleading...

https://floridadep.gov/sites/default/files/Mercury-TMDL.pdf

It all depends on where one captures a python. The Everglades are a known mercury hot spot. Your Florida DEP report still makes sense. The larger hunting territory of apex predatory fish (sharks, marlin, tuna, etc.) and their larger population will mean a higher risk from mercury in these fish than invasive large pythons.

...'The Everglades are a known mercury hot spot"...

That's not true, there are no 'hot spots' for mercury in Florida....there are no sources of mercury in Florida, all known accumulation comes from atmospheric deposit, coal burning, volcano's, waste burning, these types of pollution are world wide, not just in Florida...Mercury accumulation in predatory fish is studied and monitored and is the only threat to exposure, and that is also worldwide, and a minor threat at that...

https://www.epa.gov/international-cooperation/mercury-emissions-global-context

These references are based on total mercury, methylmercury is only a percentage of total mercury released...and considered the most toxic form of mercury which effects health. mostly in newborns and mothers...so it's reduction is mostly precautionary, but well advised....

...."A regional overview of total mercury levels in whole blood, cord blood, and breast milk suggests the highest levels in South America, followed by Africa or Asia whereas the population groups from Europe or North America displayed the lowest levels of total mercury in the selected biological matrices."...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412018318816

Artisanal mining is typically one or a few persons digging for gold or silver in shallow mines. The metal is extracted from crushed ore by dissolving it in mercury. The mercury is boiled off over an open fire. Even if attempts are made to condense and recapture the mercury vapor, such primitive, low-capital operations are going to lose a lot of it; most of it evaporates from the tailings. These operations are most common in Africa and southeast Asia, including the Pacific islands. I don't know how much of it goes on in South America, but it would not surprise me if there is some artisan mining in remote valleys of the Andes.

A recently-developed borax-based extraction process is more profitable and much less hazardous, but it will take a long time to educate all of those operators and convince them to change their traditional method, particularly since borax is harder to find than mercury.

Burmese Pythons are not indigenous to South Florida, who's to say they didn't arrive with existing high mercury levels, they do come from Southeast Asia after all, a real 'hot spot' for mercury contamination...I don't see why everybody is assuming they arrived mercury free...Alligators have a similar diet and don't have high mercury levels...

The orange is 50 - 1000 ppm...

"I don't see why everybody is assuming they arrived mercury free". Almost all the pythons being caught today will have been born in Florida, and the amount of mercury in their bodies when they were born would be minuscule compared to their adult weight. Percentage content of mercury is not something which can be passed on to offspring.

..."Mercury can pass from a mother to her baby through the placenta during pregnancy and, in smaller amounts, through breast milk after birth."...

https://www.cdc.gov/breastfeeding/breastfeeding-special-circumstances/environmental-exposures/mercury.html

...."If females maternally transfer Hg to their young, as reported in northern watersnakes (Chin et al. 2013b), these neonates may potentially spread large amounts of Hg from aquatic sources to terrestrial predators."...

http://www.tuberville.srel.uga.edu/docs/Haskins_et_al_chapter_snakes_mercury.pdf

A python is a reptile, not a mammal. Mammals produce milk to nourish the young. This is the reason why human mothers should avoid consuming food that concentrates poisons that can be transferred to a human baby. This is not disputed but this fact has nothing to do with how any python accumulates mercury. This is a red herring.

As that Kayak commercial hilariously demonstrates, doing research does not guarantee one comprehends that research.

..." Mercury concentrations in females were strongly and positively correlated with concentrations in litters, suggesting that N. sipedon maternally transfer Hg in proportion to their tissue residues. Maternal transfer resulted in high concentrations (up to 10.10 mg/kg dry wt total Hg) of Hg in offspring."...

https://scholarworks.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1624&context=aspubs

When a python hatches, the Hg concentration is understandably similar to the maternal concentration. But a hatchling weighs about 1/4 pound. A 26-foot-long python weighs more than 200 pounds. The concentration will only remain constant only if the python consumes more mercury. The maternal mercury becomes trivial.

Wait a minute, didn't somebody already explain this?

But the initial concentration of a Burmese python from Southeast Asia could be very high, because as you know, it's a 'hot spot'...maybe 1000 ppm...and Burmese pythons live for an average of 20 years...Alligators on the other hand, live twice as long....

How large are pythons on average when they are imported into the States?

...."approximately 99,000 Burmese pythons were imported to the United States between 1996 and 2006 (compared to only 17,000 between 1970 and 1995).

The species is classified by the World Conservation Union as “near threatened” in its native range in Southeast Asia due to exportation for the pet trade and hunting for skins.

Thousands of pythons are also captive bred each year in the U.S. for sale as pets. Burmese pythons sell at reptile trade shows for as little as $20, and at pet stores for $65-80.

An inexperienced snake keeper who takes home a 50-centimeter (20-inch) hatchling is, within a year, responsible for a brawny 2.4-meter (eight-foot) predator.

Unable to handle their giant snakes, and unable to find new homes for them, some owners illegally release them into the wild. Released and escaped Burmese pythons are now breeding in the wild, and their growing numbers may result in dire consequences for native wildlife and ecosystems in South Florida."...

https://crocdoc.ifas.ufl.edu/publications/factsheets/Burmese%20pythons%20in%20S%20FL_IFAS%20factsheet_final_NPS.pdf

"An inexperienced snake keeper who takes home a 50-centimeter (20-inch) hatchling is, within a year, responsible for a brawny 2.4-meter (eight-foot) predator."

That's my point: even if a snake has a very high mercury content when it is bought that content will be reduced 100 fold by the time it reaches breeding age.

It is hard to avoid the contaminants of modern society.PCB's have been found in the deepest parts of our oceans,and as is well know,contaminants increase as they go up the food chain to larger species.

We are advised to eat farm raised fish instead of wild caught fish,but what do they feed farmed fish?Ground up wild ocean fish,the entrails,scales,and everything else are in the fish meal.There is no escape from our own folly;Resistance is E/I,but otherwise, futile.

Have a look back at Solar's post #32: he's trying to establish a case for the mercury in pythons caught in Florida today having arrived in pythons born in S.E Asia.

Trying to?....I just did...

A hundred fold reduction from 1000ppm, is still 10ppm....If the snake was originally 350ppm, a 100 fold reduction would be 3.5ppm...Of course we would have to add the 1.5ppm average of similar creatures, that would lower the initial requirement to just 200ppm...Remember the python has an average lifespan of 20 years...but to get a clear picture of the rate of bioaccumulation we would need the ppm of a particular snake over time, which we don't seem to have....If the bioaccumulation increases with time, the age of the snake would be critical information we do not have..as well as the age of the mother snake at the time of gestation and her ppm content...It would seem to me that as the snake grew, so would the accumulation of ppm...

Go back to my post #33:-

"Almost all the pythons being caught today will have been born in Florida,"

The percentage of snakes caught today which were imported from S.E. Asia will be tiny.

They are all offspring of snakes imported from Southeast Asia...You seem to be implying that the bioaccumulated hg somehow dissipates, it is constantly accumulating...though we don't know at what rate, but snakes with a high hg ppm content arriving in the US and living in the everglades for 20 years are still going to have an elevated hg level, at least compared to indigenous snakes...the generation that finally reaches parity, whether it's 2nd 3rd 4th or longer, is an unknown...

Now I'm not saying that these imported snakes have a sky high hg content, I'm just saying it's a possibility, and as such might skew the results of these tests...I think it's a strong possibility that they do or did have, elevated hg content upon arrival...

I'm not saying it gets dissipated, I'm saying it gets spread very thinly.

Just for a moment suppose that there is no mercury other than that which originated in S.E. Asia.

A female imported as a hatchling with 1000 ppm will have only 10 ppm by the time she reaches breeding age, and her female children will have only 0.1ppm by the time they reach breeding size.

The reason there are so many in Florida is because they keep breeding, not, because people keep releasing them.

What is the mercury content of the tremendous amount of food those snakes have been eating to reach "breeding size"? It would seem to me the more food they eat the more mercury they accumulate, so compared to a similar snake with an initial lower hg level, the hg level would continue to be elevated...Now if you were to compare an older snake with a younger snake, the older snake would have been accumulating hg for a longer period of time...The oldest snakes should have the highest content...You can't just say all the snakes have 3.5hg, there is a range that should be age related....

This could be true only if the prey the python feasted upon were in a hot spot with higher levels of mercury. The Everglades in Florida is one such hot spot.

No, this would be true anywhere, because there is no place that is mercury free that these snakes can survive...

It doesn't matter: assuming that the snake is at least second generation, then if it's mercury content when captured is:

3.5 ppm then at least 3.4 ppm of that has been accumulated in Florida;

1.5 ppm then at least 3.4 ppm of that has been accumulated in Florida;

10 ppm then at least 9.9 ppm of that has been accumulated in Florida;

Of course for third generation 25 lb snakes the content of S.E Asia's mercury has dropped to 1 part per billion.

Once again the reason there are so many in Florida is because they are breeding, not because people keep releasing them.

It only takes two to start it,and if you apply the Fibonacci sequence,you will soon have millions,assuming only two per generation,but these snakes are capable of laying hundreds of eggs each time.

That's funny. A simple Google search of "everglades mercury" produces nearly a million articles in under a second. I don't believe nor ever claimed the geologic origin of the mercury in Florida's ecosystem came from Florida's geology. But the ecology of the Everglades does make for a well-studied system to accumulate mercury. This hot spot has been known since the 90s.

Really, and just here in the Everglades do you find tuna and swordfish?

I think what you're seeing is that the Florida Everglades is a 'hot spot for study' of not only mercury, but all things aquatic....and that is so...

I did Google "Everglades Mercury". I read three of the articles. All three indicated that mercury is an global pollutant. Mercury is concentrated in Everglades water because just about all of the surface water runoff of southern and middle Florida ends up there.

Click on the map in post #17, then click again to full expansion and you can see where the "hot spots" are.....it's not a mystery...

Sorry I shouldn't have said a "lot of mercury"; it's just that there's enough to render pythons dangerous to eat

mercury in pythons in Florida

That's certainly debatable, maybe the liver portion of the snake, which is probably not eaten anyway...

Your trap would also capture many smaller, native snakes. The USDA worked on a trap to capture just large snakes nine years ago.

Easily remedied;Simply put holes large enough for small snakes to escape,but small enough to hold the large ones.I don't think any native snakes get as large as the Pythons.If a few small Pythons escape,they will be caught when they get bigger.

The reason I selected pipes for capture,instead of a single entry,is because snakes are curious and like to explore holes,possibly for prey.

It also minimizes the odds of the snake backing out if he senses a trap.

Baiting with female Python scent would increase the chances of catching mature snakes.

With GPS locators on the traps,they can be monitored in real time so that the snakes can be removed in a timely manner and properly and humanely euthanized.

Snakes can live over a year without food if necessary,so a few days in a cage will not harm them.

I am sure there will be some Python Lovers,or others of like opinion that will cry foul,but you can never please everyone.

Well they are getting rid of a host of other pests....so it's not all bad...

..."According to the USGS, a 2012 study found that populations of raccoons had dropped 99.3%, opossums 98.9%, and bobcats 87.5% since 1997. “Marsh rabbits, cottontail rabbits, and foxes effectively disappeared,” the USGS said. “The mammals that have declined most significantly have been regularly found in the stomachs of Burmese Pythons removed from Everglades National Park and elsewhere in Florida.”

The FWC’s Detector Dog Team is now the newest tool in their arsenal to combat the burgeoning python population across Florida. The work they do, however, can be risky.

“When Truman or Eleanor catches the scent of a python, they follow that scent until they are within approximately 3 feet of the python. When they find a snake, the dogs alert the handler and are rewarded with a recognition response. The dog and handler then back away from the area, clearing the way for the FWC biologist to pinpoint the exact location so they can safely catch and remove the python from the wild,” said the FWC.

In Florida, killing pythons does not require a permit and the invasive species can be humanely killed on private lands at any time with landowner permission and the FWC actually encourages people to remove and kill pythons -- except by using traps or firearms -- from private lands whenever possible."...

https://abcnews.go.com/US/python-sniffing-dogs-floridas-newest-weapon-fighting-invasive/story?id=74776821#:~:text=But%20now%2C%20the%20Florida%20Fish,FWC's%20new%20Detector%20Dog%20Team.

Considering the epidemic proportions of the snakes now,maybe the FWC will allow traps,with certain specifications,of course,to allow native species to escape.

If the don't they are contributing to the problem.

So, anything not human is a pest? What's next; anything that's not white?

I suppose it's natural to envision a tube when imagining a trap for snakes. Inward facing flexible or spring loaded pins is a good idea, but instead of the complexity of mounting them over the internal length of a tube or tubes, mount them in a slot or slots in the perimeter of a cage. One row top and bottom of the slot, or maybe two, would provide an effective one-way-only barrier to escape.

I have another suggestion that might work. Trace the snake pet lovers that brought them there and released the first specimens, and sentence them to (not-so) hard labour i.e. hunting and exterminating them. Of course I'm not all that cruel. As soon as they do the job, let 'em go.(LOL) Even if it doesn't work, this would prevent next incident for sure. S.M.

Lol ...now who wouldn't want a large snake as a pet....they're so affectionate....

https://nypost.com/2022/07/21/15-foot-long-snake-shot-by-cops-while-wrapped-around-owners-neck/

AW! Come on! All he wanted was a hug!

"Ah shut up, silly woman," said that reptile with a grin "Now you knew darn well I was a snake before you brought me in ..."

The Snake:(song)

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=take+me+in+oh+tender+woman+song&t=newext&atb=v313-1&ia=web

Hunting pythons in the Everglades....

It looks as though a cross between Burmese and Indian pythons are becoming the best adapted to the everglades.

https://www.iflscience.com/hybrid-pythons-are-winning-the-invasive-snake-war-in-florida-everglades-71189