Senator asks Interior boss for python hunt

July 14, 2009

WASHINGTON, D.C. - With an estimated 100,000-or-more pythons now roaming the Everglades, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson today asked the nation’s federal lands czar to allow deputized agents and volunteers into the national park this winter to kill as many of the menacing snakes as possible.

Besides pythons threatening the park’s ecosystem, the dangers to humans became tragically apparent when a pet constrictor strangled a toddler to death in Central Florida two weeks ago. 

“Lord forbid, a visitor in the Everglades ever encounters one,” Nelson wrote in a letter today to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.

In his letter, Nelson asked Salazar to use other agencies or deputized agents to go after the snakes and kill them en masse in a special hunt.  The pythons are hard to find in the warmer months when they hide in the saw grass.  But in the cooler months, they come out to sun on the roadsides and open areas.

Separate from a snake hunt, the state is in the early stages of establishing a program to let reptile experts capture the snakes on lands that the state manages.

Nelson and Salazar – former Senate colleagues – took an airboat tour of the ‘Glades in May.   During their visit, park officials joined the two for a close-up look at a recently captured  python 15 feet long and weighing 90 pounds.

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