One of Florida's most lethal python hunters

https://gardenandgun.com/feature/python-hunter/

by gmays • 2 years ago

120 144 2 years ago

I wonder why they're not using thermal cameras. Snakes are ectothermic, but they still show up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOL0RocIUI0

burcs2• 2 years ago

Agreed – it feels like sending drones out the levee access roads they mention with thermal cameras would be their best bet.

skeeter20208• 2 years ago

HN: What problem CAN'T be solved with more technology?

atourgates2• 2 years ago

I was thinking about technological solutions.

Maybe some combination of cameras (thermal, traditional, maybe even Lidar) combining data and processing it to detect at least likely pythons.

It wouldn't have to be perfect, but I imagine such a solution could be more effective than even the most experienced and talented human python spotter.

MrBuddyCasino2• 2 years ago

Yes a thermal cam on a drone plus maybe a bit of AI could save a lot of time.

munificent5• 2 years ago

Thermal cameras have a fairly narrow FOV. When you're moving at (albeit slow) driving speeds and trying to see everything around you, trying to look through a thermal camera and scan around would probably be too slow and end up costing you more time.

Also consider that there are plenty of other native snakes the same size as a small python that will show up as a false positive on a thermal camera.

lq9AJ8yrfs• 2 years ago

Lenses are a thing in the thermal spectra, but you have a point that they are very expensive if your desired objective doesn't coincide with someone else's bulk use case. They are also typically hard to care for and some of them are toxic.

For magnification at least, doesnt help with hunting pythons probably, you can use the focusing lenses for laser cutters, which typically work in thermal wavelengths, to turn a handheld thermal camera into a microscope. Or is it a "milliscope" i guess owing to the limit imposed by the coarser wavelegths.

I wonder how much optical solutions could be solved with the "wrong" lens paired with a well trained transformer or similar modern AI. If google or apple can deblur your family photos is it unrealistic to think you could deblur a thermal image acquired using found lenses?

Crystallography algorithms might even work out of the box? Or be adaptable hopefully?

trhway3• 2 years ago

how do we know that the Florida python bounty doesnt repeat the Cobra effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive

burcs2• 2 years ago

I was thinking the same thing. However the article says they are only letting in select people and they are getting paid close to minimum wage.

I imagine it would not be worth the hassle of breeding and releasing pythons, and the character of the people they bring in to help is vetted as well.

Retric• 2 years ago

It’s an hourly wage and the pay isn’t high enough to cover costs of breeding pythons.

A python can weigh over 200lb. It takes a lot to support a snake that big and they monitor sizes to ensure the catch matches what you would expect from a wild population.

CamperBob2• 2 years ago

It’s an hourly wage and the pay isn’t high enough to cover costs of breeding pythons.

"Allow me to introduce myself," says the VC.

culi3• 2 years ago

You have to be licensed/hired for it

potato37328424• 2 years ago

That means there's a licensing department somewhere that wouldn't have jobs if the pythons went away completely.

spacebanana7• 2 years ago

Introducing natural predators for pythons like the king cobra might be a more scalable solution. It’s very hard to shoot all the members of an invasive species.

trhway3• 2 years ago

I think i read somewhere that people in snake infested areas like to have cobras in their villages as cobras prey on smaller venomous snakes.

skeeter20208• 2 years ago

only if you own a mongoose!

ceejayoz2• 2 years ago

“No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.“

slothtrop• 2 years ago

Soon we'll be trying to telegraph just how much of a cultural phenomenon this show was, and come off like Abe.

southernplaces7• 2 years ago

Had to go rewatch it on Youtube... Thanks for that good laugh...

rad_gruchalski• 2 years ago

In Florida? Good luck with that.

gacklecackle• 2 years ago

You know what happened regarding cats as rabbit hunters in Australia?

ceejayoz2• 2 years ago

Cane toads, too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cane_toads_in_Australia

MezzoDelCammin• 2 years ago

A wonderful work of late Terry Pratchett comes to mind:

“We got a bit carried away,” said Moist. “We were a bit too creative in our thinking. We encouraged mongooses to breed in the posting boxes to keep down the snakes…” Lord Vetinari said nothing. “Er… which, admittedly, we introduced into the letter boxes to reduce the number of toads…” Lord Vetinari repeated himself. “Er… which, it’s true, staff put in the posting boxes to keep down the snails…” Lord Vetinari remained unvocal. “Er… These, I must in fairness point out, got into the boxes of their own accord, in order to eat the glue on the stamps,” said Moist, aware that he was beginning to burble

IncreasePosts• 2 years ago

The Simpsons did it first: https://youtu.be/3f5viRoaZNw?si=YcVu452gEypmYn6Q&t=72

beretguy2• 2 years ago

I'd prefer honey badgers.

xyst4• 2 years ago

Great, now FL will have a King Cobra problem :)

jolt42• 2 years ago

King snakes will control other snake populations, but I imagine boas not so much.

skeeter20208• 2 years ago

so your idea to eliminate this human-caused, unintended problem is to double down... with the king cobra? Then maybe some sort of cobra-eating gorilla that's allergic to spring breakers and dies off?

dreamcompiler3• 2 years ago

Umm, no. The only elapid species wild in the US is the coral snake and beyond that the only venomous snakes we have are cottonmouths, copperheads, and several species of rattlesnake. That's the list. The US does not need any new species of venomous snakes.

soneca2• 2 years ago

Very well written article. Informative, sensible and articulate without going that New Yorker style that I find boring.

gaws• 2 years ago

without going that New Yorker style

What is that style, exactly?

soneca2• 2 years ago

“New Yorker” magazine I mean. Very long-winded, going into literary tangents, often giving the impression that showcasing the writer’s literary skills are more important than the subject.

bbor• 2 years ago

Great article! That said,

  the Everglades and its web of life as we know it have existed for five thousand years. In the comparative blink of an eye, that intricate system has been upended.

...that doesn't sound so bad, when you put it like that. This is part of a bigger philosophical stance of mine: maybe the best course of action isn't "preserve nature exactly as we found it forever"? I definitely see the utility in ridding Florida of literal monsters, but in general, some of our fights against invasive species just seem... IDK, vain. Brazen. Arrogant. Like, they're considering an owl hunting program in the western US to protect the slower, shittier owls that already live there. What's the point? Will we have owl hunting season until the sun expands?

  She has been bitten more times than she can count; though not venomous, pythons possess rows of curved, needle-sharp teeth. .. “Use a floodlight to scan the ground near the truck, and look for an iridescence and a pattern... Shout ‘Python!’ if you think you see something, even if you’re not positive—it’s better to be wrong than to miss one."

...surely drones, night vision, and guns could help solve this problem? I understand that snakes can "remain conscious" after injury, but wrestling the pythons into a cage so you can execute them in your garage seems like a step too far. Maybe I'm underestimating how hard it would be to shoot a snake?

ETA: they do eventually reference "researchers using drones", so we're not the only ones to think of that. Not to rejoice in anyone losing their job of course, but I do hope that some automation makes this more feasible.

throwup2383• 2 years ago

...surely drones, night vision, and guns could help solve this problem?

It takes an average of ten hours of searching per snake during which time they mostly drive around so I don’t think drones are a realistic option here due to flight time. There’s little benefit to searching far beyond the roads/levees because the swamp is a very tough terrain to navigate and it gets dangerous thanks to the gators.

Can’t use (real) night vision googles because any stray light from the car could blind the wearer and it would kill the driver’s peripheral vision making it impractical to drive.

ksymph• 2 years ago

A single shot is unlikely to kill, and in these areas a snake can very quickly disappear into water or foliage. I doubt drones or night vision would help much for similar reasons - the issue lies as much in being able to reach the snakes as it does in being able to locate them. The Everglades are incredibly thick, a snake will easily outpace and hide from a human outside of roads. It does seem like there should be a better way than wrestling them but it's hard to say what that might be.

dylan604• 2 years ago

A single shot is unlikely to kill

That's why they make guns that can load more than one bullet at a time. Also, maybe use a higher caliber bullet. Lot's of asinine pro-gun enthusiastic responses available for Florida man to retort with.

t-32• 2 years ago

"preserve nature exactly as we found it forever"

It's not even "as we found it", it's "as it was at a certain arbitrary point in time". I've seen zero proposals to eliminate earthworms, honeybees, or dandelions from the Americas.

Mistletoe• 2 years ago

I'm fine with removing dandelions but good luck.

_yb2s• 2 years ago

Controlling invasive species is not just some sentimental thing about preserving the purity of nature. Invasive species can massively destabilize an ecosystem- wiping out huge numbers of other species, and destroying natural resources humans depend on for economic livelihood. It is hard to predict the severity of the end point, so best to head it off as aggressively and early as possible.

nradov• 2 years ago

I'm not necessarily opposed to eradicating invasive species, but natural ecosystems are seldom stable. Populations boom and crash all the time for other reasons.

hinkley4• 2 years ago

Dave Attel’s Insomniac goes to New Orleans. Surprisingly they don’t go with the nightlife, but he hangs out with a SWAT team sniper who practices by sitting in a pickup bed sniping nutria in the canals. Probably doesn’t work as well in the Everglades though.

psalzzz4• 2 years ago

FWC, the Universities, and the Water Management districts are testing out a lot of methods --- including drones armed with an AI-based imaging system to identify the snakes & eventually eliminate. Given they're cold blooded you need to have visual confirmation - finding heat signatures isn't easy. FWC also has a truck outfitted with LIDAR to detect them. My family and I drove around in their trucks with FWC and WM earlier this year hunting them and learning what can be done to try and help solve this issue.

The snakes are captured & bagged, then they are humanely eliminated using a bolt gun to the brain. The brain is then completely destroyed using a metal rod to ensure there's no more activity.

dmonitor• 2 years ago

So when can we start writing articles glazing the US's most lethal cat hunters? They're an invasive species in most states and kill billions of native birds every year.

throwup2383• 2 years ago

When you find enough suicidal people to establish “cat hunter” as a profession and they survive long enough to make it a competition.

Every cat lover with a gun would be out hunting them back.

justin66• 2 years ago

The parent comment was created by dog people attempting to move the Overton window.

MOARDONGZPLZ• 2 years ago

Well first, I think there would need to be cat hunters. I don’t think there are.

Second, we’ve decided as a society that a particular set of animals are ones we love and protect. Dogs, cats, horses, etc. So it’s very unlikely any hunter of this class of animal would be palatable to our society. Maybe in another country where they don’t view this class of animal in the same way.

Third, I am totally in agreement that cats kill so many birds every year. We keep our cat indoors for this reason.

lupusreal• 2 years ago

It might just be an urban legend, but I have heard that some American soldiers sent to Afghanistan were told that shooting stray dogs would help their reputation with locals. I think rabies is a prevalent problem in that part of the world, so it seems plausible.

dosinga• 2 years ago

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7076733/Catman-Kang...

atourgates2• 2 years ago

I mean - we do sort of. We just TNR them (trap, neuter, release), because we don't have much appetite to euthanize fuzzy cute animals we see as pets.

Sadly, it looks like the program is struggling to find funding: https://www.kare11.com/article/news/local/breaking-the-news/...

culi3• 2 years ago

One of the most effective techniques we use for mosquito population control is to actually breed infertile mosquitoes and release them out in the wild. When mosquitoes breed they will end up laying infertile eggs

I wonder if we could do the same with other species or if the destructiveness pythons exhibit in their much longer lifespans makes this equation work out very differently

xyst4• 2 years ago

If responsible cat owners wouldn’t let them out of the house, then this wouldn’t be a problem

HarryHirsch• 2 years ago

The thing with cats is that people think they have a cat problem when in fact they have a rodent problem that the cats keep in check.

Then they go, eradicate the cats, and wonder where the rats and mice come from. It's called the "mesopredator problem" in ecology, and it's a massive issue when you want to restore ocean islands for birds.

trhway3• 2 years ago

kill billions of native birds every year.

what is wrong with killing billions of ill and old birds? That is how Nature works, and the other predators do it in the non-developed areas where humans didn't push out those predators from. In the developed areas the other predators are gone, so thanks to the cats who do the necessary job of all those missing predators.

They're an invasive species in most states

Do you see many native predators around humans? If anything the humans is the invasive species doing pretty much all the damage.

tejtm• 2 years ago

Cats were not domesticated, they opted to coexist with a overly invasive species and have been doing pretty okay because of that, perhaps advocates of felinocide would be interested in joining VHEMT to address the root of what bothers them.

cyberax• 2 years ago

They're an invasive species in most states and kill billions of native birds every year.

That's fine. Humans exterminated most of the native felines on the North American continent, so we're just re-introducing some of them.

swayvil• 2 years ago

So I was in the drainage ditch having a bit of opossum when this old lady rolls up in a blinged-out pickup and starts taking selfies.

mminer237• 2 years ago

This might be a bit gruesome, but why not shoot the snakes the on site? That seems way easier and faster than physically wrestling dangerous snakes sometimes bigger than yourself, throwing them in your truck, and shooting them in your garage. Is it just the solemnity? The chance of missing and it escaping and the difficulty of wrestling with a gun?

kkielhofner• 2 years ago

They get paid per verified kill:

https://www.sfwmd.gov/our-work/python-program

No idea how it actually works but shooting them where they are has to be tough to verify.

thfuran2• 2 years ago

It has to be easier to get a dead python into your truck than a live one, right?

onlypassingthru• 2 years ago

How big is the head? Machete FTW.

psalzzz4• 2 years ago

You can't shoot them. You must kill them by the guidelines from FWC. You're not allowed to run around with guns and shoot at the animals.

turbonaut• 2 years ago

Particularly with snakes… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive

blackeyeblitzar• 2 years ago

I wonder why this has not been abused like with the cobra effect.

markdown• 2 years ago

It's not hard to transport an esky of snake heads.

chasil• 2 years ago

I think a gene drive will be cheaper than all of this manual labor.

Release a male python that can only sire male pythons, and population collapse is inevitable.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6083257/

gweinberg• 2 years ago

I don't think that can work. Reptiles don't have X and Y chromosomes.

xyst4• 2 years ago

My guess is the noise factor even if you consider a suppressor. Sure, you kill 1 python snake. But scare off a half dozen in the near area.

Who knows, maybe the gun fire attracts other predators in the glades (alligators?).

TylerE• 2 years ago

Incorrect. Snakes have very minimal hearing. A bit in the lower frequencies, but we’re mostly talking about vibrations picked up from the ground… they don’t have external ear canals.

julianeon• 2 years ago

I imagine you'd end up with lots of leaded bullets in the water, over time. Naturally lead + water = bad.

Note: I know about this because there's a gun range near where I live by the lake, and the lake is now permanently off limits for swimming due to lead pollution.

ultimafan• 2 years ago

California law prevents hunting with lead bullets for this same reason. There's alternatives on the market for bullets made out of other non toxic or non polluting metals. I imagine they could do something similar there.

Unbeliever69• 2 years ago

I grew up in a shooting and hunting family. Whenever we were driving around town my dad would point out a wheel weight on the ground at a stop light/sign and my brother and I would jump out of the Land Cruiser and collect it. This was the 80s of course so we were drinking out of hose bibs, riding our bikes on high-traffic streets without helmets, and playing live Frogger to collect wheel weights. It was a game to my brother and I because wheel weights came in various shapes and sizes so it was fun to see if we could land a whopper. We would also stop by Tire stores and scour the parking lot for them. At some point we would melt the lead down into bars using a crucible. These would be later cast into bullets. My brother and I were also (in hindsight) child slave laborers that were tasked with reloading cartridges and shotgun shells for target shooting and trap/skeet. In our house this was considered a chore. This was our childhood. None of us ever used gloves or masks during any step in this process.

In a recent conversation over breakfast I brought up lead poisoning and my dad was adamant (in his conspiratorial way) about how all of that lead exposure via handling lead and inhaling lead fumes didn't result in any significant health problems for us. I'm assuming he meant that we all weren't dead yet. He's 80 and a wreck. He's had all sorts of health issues include recent cancer remission. I'm 55 and I've had nerve issues since my teenage years which manifests itself as a noticeable tremor in my right hand that has got worse over time. I developed adult onset asthma in my late teens. I have a host of other health conditions as well. Who knows how much of that is tied back to lead exposure.

grogenaut2• 2 years ago

It's nationally illegal (yes i'm being american centric) to hunt waterfowl with lead and has been since the 90s at least. You use Steel or Bizmuth usually. But that's with shot with is 80+ bb's per shell vs one. If folks are firing a 22 at these it's not going to be a ton of lead in one spot. Also this is florida, people are definitely using the swamp as a backstop for their gun ranges.

ineedaj0b• 2 years ago

shooting things in the everglades is tough. it's swamp land. i think there's a decent amount of lead in bullets

CuriousCosmic• 2 years ago

It's far less effective because you have to hit an extremely small target to actually kill a python. Far easier and more reliable to just get up close and personal with it and either bludgeon, impale, or decapitate it after you get it pinned down.

dreamcompiler3• 2 years ago

You want the snake under control in a well-lit environment and you don't want to miss and cause the snake pain or worse--use an instrument that can injure a bystander.

Physically wrestling pythons is not really dangerous if you know what you're doing.

aranchelk• 2 years ago

the Everglades and its web of life as we know it have existed for five thousand years.

Typo? Creationism? That seems like a very short period of time.

neerajk• 2 years ago

Thats when the sea receded, so its "only" 5,000 years old after all.

gs17• 2 years ago

https://www.everglades.org/early-formation/ >Only about 5000 years ago did South Florida’s climate take on its current sub-tropical and monsoonal character of dry winters followed by hot moist summers with large amounts of rain (on average 50-60 inches per year), as seas that surround it on three sides warm and evaporate.

culi3• 2 years ago

The Amazon rainforest itself is also not that much older than 10k years. In fact, there's some evidence that humans played a major role in its transition from grassland to jungle

potato37328424• 2 years ago

The unique ecosystems and their locations around the world are a direct consequence of the oceans and weather. The oceans and weather were wildly different during the last ice age and consequently the ecosystem present in many places was wildly different than it is today.

Even only going back a couple thousand years the changes have been huge (desertification in the ME and North Africa).

spankalee• 2 years ago

What's the point? The pythons are there now, and there's no way to capture them all.

__MatrixMan__• 2 years ago

biodiversity == resilience. If we let the planet turn into a near-monoculture of kudzu and cockroaches (or whatever the stable equilibrium might look like), we die. If we wait to act until the web of relationships is simple enough that we can predict the particular nature of that death, it seems likely that it'll be too late.

This does seem like a doomed-to-fail stopgap kind of solution, but sometimes stopgaps are all you've got.

munificent5• 2 years ago

From the article:

So far, the data suggests that native wildlife is responding in the areas the contractors patrol; though they might not be surging back, mammals and birds are finding the toehold they need to survive. While no one believes the pythons will ever be fully eradicated, Kirkland is hopeful that in twenty years, native wildlife might have regained more than a toehold, and the issue might lessen into something close to manageable.

rietta2• 2 years ago

Here is an official Florida government source on the humane methods for killing a python. https://myfwc.com/wildlifehabitats/nonnatives/python/humane-...

- Your method should result in the animal losing consciousness immediately.

- You should then destroy the animal's brain by “pithing” which prevents the animal from regaining consciousness.

Looking at the diagram, the head is very small in comparison to the entire body. Perhaps that is why shooting is discouraged. I cannot find a source that states that shooting is illegal. There are limitations on where pythons can be hunted, which is on private land with permission or some public lands. That is mostly going to be a safety and private property protection purposes.

The website states "Members of the public may not transport pythons alive and must humanely kill pythons at the capture location. However, python skins or meat may be kept and/or sold."

nanolith• 2 years ago

Shooting invasive species is definitely legal in Florida assuming that you have permission of the land owner or are otherwise in a location where shooting is allowed (i.e. not in a municipality that bans the gunfire). It has to be done humanely: if you hit the invasive animal, you are responsible for dispatching it as quickly as possible. If you don't dispatch the animal, you can easily run foul of animal cruelty laws here.

I have been hoping for a health improvement so I can go on a guided python hunt. I have read up on it quite a bit. Not only can I get python leather to make a nice wallet, belt, and a pair of boots, but I can do so while doing a small part to curb an invasive species that is wrecking havoc on the ecosystem in South Florida.

rietta2• 2 years ago

I hope your health does improve and you get to go on your hunt! Sounds like a good thing to plan for. Leathermaking is a good use too considering the unsafe mercury levels found in the Python meat.

TechDebtDevin2• 2 years ago

I say we just give Florida back to Spain and call it a day.

hansvm• 2 years ago

A large body doesn't really matter, but the small head does. It's about half the size (linear measurements) of a deer head for reference, which is a pretty easy shot for almost anyone at 50 yards and not bad with a twidge of focused training at 250 yards.

However, for whatever reason, snakes don't seem to die very quickly when you shoot them in the head a few times (enough news stories if you're interested). I'd imagine that's at least part of where the recommendation comes from. Plus, they die incredibly slowly (if ever) if you go for a body shot. It'd probably suffer less if you drowned it (an ordeal that itself also takes hours), and none of those methods are even slightly humane.

dreamcompiler3• 2 years ago

They can live for several minutes or even tens of minutes after decapitation. As in the head stays alive and remains capable of biting you. Every now and then a person who cuts the head off a rattlesnake gets bitten by the head and has to go to the hospital.

The most humane way to kill a snake is to quickly destroy the brain by crushing the head or pithing as the article points out.

hinkley4• 2 years ago

Should we be capturing the large ones, sterilizing them and rereleasing like we do for cats?

I wonder how you tag a python as spayed though. No ears.

psalzzz4• 2 years ago

No, they should be eliminated immediately. Finding a living mammal in the everglades is becoming rare with these snakes destroying the ecosystem. I spent several days hunting for Pythons earlier this year and didn't see even a single deer or rabbit.

hinkley4• 2 years ago

But one clutch of eggs will replace the pythons you kill and then some.

A neutered python puts predation pressure on the rest. Creates crowding.

MikeKusold• 2 years ago

We shouldn't even be doing that for cats.

Domestic cats are an invasive species that decimate the native wildlife. "free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0 billion birds and 6.3–22.3 billion mammals annually."[0]

Since we're talking about Florida, this is what their Fish & Game department has to say on the topic:

* Domestic cats are not a part of Florida’s natural ecosystem. A single individual free-ranging cat may kill 100 or more birds and mammals per year. Scientists in Wisconsin estimate that cats kill at least 7.8 million birds per year in that state alone. Even cats with bells on their collars kill or injure birds and small mammals.
* Cats compete with native wildlife and can spread disease. Outdoor cats have been identified as the primary host in the transmission of toxoplasmosis to wildlife, a disease which has caused death in manatees and other mammals.

[0] https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380 [1]: https://myfwc.com/wildlifehabitats/nonnatives/feral-cats/

shepherdjerred• 2 years ago

...are you advocating for outdoor pet cats to be put to death by the state?

skeeter20208• 2 years ago

What would that accomplish? They'd just kill more native fauna until they die, and it would be incredibly expensive. Plus, what program "captures, sterilizes and releases cats", which are not wild animals to begin with?

1234letshaveatw• 2 years ago

She ain't got nothing on the Python Cowboy https://www.youtube.com/@PythonCowboy

AlexandrB• 2 years ago

There's also this guy: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5JB_bzQwtZ8

I don't know how his numbers stack up, but he's amusing to watch.

mhb• 2 years ago

I wonder if there's a way to attract them.

charlangas• 2 years ago

As a snake keeper, I imagine the best way to attract them would be with food (i.e. rats), but then you run the risk of also attracting other native predators as well.

But to build on your idea, a trap that a python can enter but not exit without human assistance could be interesting. You can check the traps periodically and free any native wildlife that happens to enter them.

SoftTalker• 2 years ago

Very interesting, and a welcome alternative to the tech-focused stuff that dominates here. Thanks for posting.

kleton• 2 years ago

What if they released honey badgers in Florida? Not saying they're any more native than the pythons, but at least they have personality.

syngrog66• 2 years ago

wrong type of python for HN

sourcepluck• 2 years ago

I was waiting for the gruesome tale of a Ruby dev who'd had enough

duud• 2 years ago

Underrated related show

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt14129378/

belter• 2 years ago

Wait...So this is not a thread about debugging code?

One of Florida's most lethal python hunters

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