Florida enlists snake hunters from India in fight against invasive pythons

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The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has tapped two adept hunters from India – armed with tire irons – to find and get rid of Burmese pythons, which are wiping out small mammal populations in the Everglades.

 

“I pointed out that part of the year, the swamp is quite dry and that’s the time when they would be able to find the things like back home, the

tracks of snake,” Romulus Whitaker, a conservationist in India, told the Miami Herald. “This is very big and probably the biggest invasive reptile problem that has ever existed on the planet, so let’s do something.”

 

In two weeks this month, Masi Sadaiyan and Vadivel Gopal, both in their 50s and hailing from the famed Irula snake hunting tribe, have caught 14 of the elusive pythons, including a 16-footer hiding at a former missile base on Key Largo.

 

For comparison, 1,000 hunters, mostly amateurs, in the state’s annual Python Challenge contest caught 106 snakes over the course of a month last year and 68 the year before, the Miami Herald reports.

 

“Since the Irula have been so successful in their homeland at removing pythons, we are hoping they can teach people in Florida some of these skills,” said Kristen Sommers, chief of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Wildlife Impact Management Section.

 

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