Python hunting

Quote: Ayecarumba

I note on the website that "total compensation will not exceed $6,000".

Well, its still good money for two months work and I'm sure a snake wrangler getting that much would be happy. I don't know if Face ever applied to be one of the 25 experimental wranglers but this incident does show that SOME of the money can be really quick and easy.

Not going well ????

TEN pythons in TEN days.... including two 15 foot pythons.

Politicians pretending its a good result. Its not.

See USA today. April 5th.

It is however getting SOME results and that story out of Indonesia sure didn't hurt.

Considering the scope of the problem I think ten pythons per day is what will be needed. Do snakes emit mating scents? Can drones be used?

Quote: Fleastiff

Considering the scope of the problem I think ten pythons per day is what will be needed. Do snakes emit mating scents? Can drones be used?

Snakes are cold blooded, but I wonder if you could still differentiate their bodies at all with infrared technology.

One of the problems is not being able to see even a big snake in the weeds next to you.

Other possibility might be colored lenses. If you wore green lenses, maybe the slightly different color of the snake would be easier to spot.

Third possibility is training a dog specifically to smell snake, if that's possible. You might have to rescue your dog more than once though. Finding them, might not be his lucky day.

Youtube has stuff on UAVs finding rattlesnakes but its simply a uav with a camera and a microphone then a humam simply views the screen and listens to the rattles.

UV light would probably be best to detect a python. Do pythons leave a slime trail of any sort? A neural net would have to analyze the images since a human would soon tire of the boredom involved and miss out on the snake even if there was a bounty on it. Main thing is a uav can fly over canal banks but a man has to trek there to get to them.

I don't think dogs could be trained faster than they would be eaten even the snake just had a meal.

Quote: Fleastiff

A neural net would have to analyze the images since a human would soon tire of the boredom involved and miss out on the snake even if there was a bounty on it.

That would be kind of cool if you could pull that off in real time. It would select highly probable locations of snakes in an area.

I wonder if anyone has thought about making a high tensile strength net. It would be expensive to make because of the size. But if you could pin it down over an area you could trap snakes inside. Needs small webbing holes. There's places with only palm fronds. Obviously you couldn't put it over higher trees. Or I guess you could, but that would be really expensive.

Actually, I think you could use canvas or some other material for most of the center and net at all the edges, that would be cheaper.

Nine year old Australian girl on camping trip awakes to find 2.5 meter python securely wrapped around her arm. Treated at local hospital and family camping trip cut short.

It seems that such things are unlikely to be taking place in or around the Everglades. Burmese Pythons spend much of the day hiding and few people camp in the Everglades anywhere near the ground.

I've no update info on how the experimental python hunt is going, but if it were a rousing success I'm sure we would have been hearing about it.

Paying to have the pythons hunted is only because of our stupid liberal PC bullshit. All they need to do is declare it open season on pythons. There have to be enough rednecks in that area that want a python on their wall or maybe a pair of boots to handle the problem for free. Hell the government could probably make money selling 'python tags' to the hunters.

Quote: kenarman

There have to be enough rednecks in that area that want a python on their wall or maybe a pair of boots to handle the problem for free. Hell the government could probably make money selling 'python tags' to the hunters.

I do it every week here just for the joy of it, though obviously no pythons. Gimme $5 a foot and I'd do it most days. Make it a hundo a snake and I'd quit my job lol.

All it needs is a market. An enterprising fella taking a stab at exotic cuisine, a tanner / seamstress combo making custom clothing and accessories, an Eastener dabbling in archaic medicine. Make a market and the Glades would be filled with pet store hot rocks stuffed in fuzzy dog toys with a Michigan Cricket hidden inside. They'd be pulled out hand over fist.

Quote: Face

an Eastener dabbling in archaic medicine.

They are already using it. They feed it to normal people to make politicians out of them.

I don't think there is a sufficient market for snake skins in general much less the skins or meat of a python.

I do recall that some self-described rednecks from Kentucky or Tennessee participated in the earlier Python Hunt and got drunk and lost in the Everglades and had to be rescued by Fish and Game personnel at great expense and risk.

Pythons have a homing instinct, unlike most snakes, and who knows if that is a 'marketable' trait that can be used in some way. Most pythons removed from where they are found will navigate back 'home' and perhaps that could lead to other pythons. I do not know how 'territorial' they are. Under some circumstances horses will attack a python but I don't think that would be a viable way of hunting them.