Nasty Discovery of ‘500 Pounds of Mating Pythons’ in Southwest Florida

It's not bad enough that the Burmese Python has now become an invasive species in Florida, but breeding season proved very interesting for trappers who were on the hunt.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is constantly checking out these inhabitants of the marshes of Florida. The breeding season lasts from December to April.

The pythons were found in aggregations, as experts call them, or mating balls. It's that time of year for pythons.

According to FOX59,

The team closely monitors snakes during breeding seasons and uses active searching and telemetry to remove the invasive species before the females have a chance to lay their eggs.

Here's the thing, the Burmese Python eats mammals. These snakes were first introduced in Florida in the 70s, but now they are multiplying, as creatures do, and they are killing mammals according to the US Geological Survey.

FOX59 says,

In the 1970s, hundreds of these snakes were brought to Florida from their native habitat of Southeast Asia through a pet trade.

When pythons are out loose in the Everglades of Florida, they eat up all the mammals they encounter and that throws off the whole ecosystem of nature.

It's not a good recipe, and while it may seem unkind, in order to save other wildlife they have to be hunted and humanely put down.

It may not sound like the nicest thing, but it's absolutely necessary as conservancy biologist Ian Bartoszek explains,

For 10 years, we've been catching and putting them down humanely. You can't put them in zoos and send them back to Southeast Asia. Invasive species management doesn't end with rainbows and kittens.

That's just the hard truth of it.

Because of the pythons in the Everglades, the Conservancy of Southwest Florida reports a 90% decline in mammal populations in that area.