At first I thought the invasive pythons were being killed off by the parasite, which was great news, but the parasite is instead killing native Florida snakes, according to the article (edit: thanks DoreenMichele).
The Burmese pythons are the only predators that can kill Florida alligators. It's thought that owners of pet pythons released their snakes into the everglades when they didn't want them anymore through the 80s/90s, and the population became a problem starting in the 2000s:
What also might have contributed to the boom was Hurrican Andrew in 1992, when exotic wildlife sanctuaries and zoos in Dade County got destroyed and animals escaped:
I love how one of the proposed solutions to the problem is "introducing jaguars".
While I understand how that makes some sense, it is hilariously similar to the Simpsons' episode where flying lizard erase pigeons and are eliminated by introducing snakes which are eliminated by introducing snake-eating gorillas..
> "But laying their hands on fast-moving, highly dangerous, camouflaged reptiles in a swamp that extends for thousands of square miles is about as easy as it sounds."
Yeah, this doesn't sound super promising unless they find a very scalable solution :(
Somewhat off-topic but I was just reading about Tegus running rampant in Florida. It must be tough running the various municipalities down there considering there are so many species who could flourish there. You always hear about the Pythons but there are quite a few species who thrive.
Reducing biodiversity is a bad thing. Even if you concentrate on things that strictly benefit human beings, there can be unknown benefits ages from now. One example would be finding that the native Florida snake creates some sort of chemical (maybe in its venom or from one of its glands of organs) that can be used to treat some kind of human illness.
The food chain evolved as a single system that has all species working in tandem to control each other. When you remove links from the food chain, the entire chain falls apart.
For example, in Yellowstone, hunting wolves because they are a nuisance to humans caused their prey, elk, to overpopulate and consume all of the plant life along the rivers. Consequently, the rivers began to erode the soil and prevent many other animals from making the area their home. https://earthjustice.org/blog/2015-july/how-wolves-saved-the...
> The authors of the study[0] said they could only find one report of a free-ranging Burmese python fatality: the death of an infant in Hong Kong about a century ago.
I absolutely disagree. Human habitation overlaps with very few predators these days, and when they do, I'd generally prefer relocating the humans over controlling the predator population.
This isn’t so bad if it kills off water moccasins which will definitely kill you if they bite you. They like to hide in bushes or under trash cans and can easily lash out at you or a child if you get too close. A python is much easier to avoid, and generally restricts itself to the Everglades.
The Burmese pythons are the only predators that can kill Florida alligators. It's thought that owners of pet pythons released their snakes into the everglades when they didn't want them anymore through the 80s/90s, and the population became a problem starting in the 2000s:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burmese_pythons_in_Florida
What also might have contributed to the boom was Hurrican Andrew in 1992, when exotic wildlife sanctuaries and zoos in Dade County got destroyed and animals escaped:
https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1992-09-20-19922640... (1992 article)