Snakes in the Wrong Place | God's World News
Snakes in the Wrong Place
Critter File
Posted: July 05, 2017

Pythons don’t belong in the Everglades. So how did they get there?

Hurricane Andrew swept through Florida in 1992. The hurricane’s winds destroyed the town of Homestead, Florida. Baby pythons had been incubated in hatcheries and pet dealerships there. People believe the wind carried the tiny snakes out of their plastic cups and bowls and blew them straight into the Everglades. When those snakes grew up, they had more baby snakes . . . and more . . . and more. Most pythons found in the Everglades now seem to be related to the baby snakes from Homestead. They have similar DNA.

But pet owners are part of the python problem too. Sometimes, they release their pythons into the Everglades on purpose. You might be able to imagine why that would be tempting. Let’s say you buy yourself a pet python. It’s fun at first. But what do you do with your python once it grows 20 feet long? You will have to keep buying rabbits for it to eat—and it will get hungrier every time you feed it! At that point, it would be easier to release it into the wild than to keep caring for it.

Burmese pythons come from Southeast Asia. Most end up in the United States because people want them for pets. In Asia, the snakes have a major predator: humans. There, humans kill pythons for their skin. The snakes have few powerful enemies in Florida. Alligators can eat some of the snakes. But Burmese pythons can keep growing until they weigh 200 pounds and are as wide as telephone poles. By then, they aren’t competing with alligators for their dinner. They’re having alligators for dinner!