12/21/2024
Did you know staff assists researchers by performing tracker implant surgeries on invasive Burmese pythons? Since being introduced to South Florida, they've become invasive apex predators. This means they're a large threat to native species survival and have dramatically reduced mammal populations in the Everglades by 90%.
These tracking devices help biologists to understand their movements, reproductive activity, juvenile survival rates, prey base, and find other pythons to remove them from the natural areas.
Some people ask, “Why would researchers release these pythons back into the Everglades when we know they are harmful?” This is totally understandable and may seem like a contradiction at first. But, if we don’t understand how the snakes move, reproduce, how many there are, how to find them, what species they are impacting the most, their survival rate, and what is eating them, we can’t create informed conservation strategies to control them. Plus, these pythons with transmitters lead biologists to other pythons when they socially interact, allowing them to use one python to find and remove many others.
