Python Update, Now Featuring GPS-Tracked Lunch

Musings from John David’s Side Hustle

If you’ve been receiving my newsletter, you know I have developed a strange sense of civic duty when it comes to keeping you informed about the ongoing advance of invasive pythons in Florida. This is not a role I asked for. It is a role that found me. Much like the pythons themselves, which, as previously reported, have now been spotted north, south, east, and west of my home. Comforting.

In past updates, we have explored the many creative efforts to deal with this problem. There were trained hunters. There were organized roundups. There remains, my personal favorite, the robotic bunny decoy.

Yesterday, in a story in USA Today that I swear is real, I learned that Florida wildlife officials have introduced a new strategy. They are fitting opossums with GPS collars so they can track pythons after the snakes eat them. And if you are pausing right now to reread that sentence, I get you.

Before we go any further, let me be clear. This is a deadly serious ecological crisis. The numbers are staggering. Estimates suggest pythons have wiped out about 99 percent of raccoons in parts of the Everglades, 98 percent of opossums, and 88 percent of bobcats. It is hard to overstate how disruptive it is to the ecosystem. This is not a quirky Florida story. It’s a real problem with real consequences.

Which brings us back to the strategy.

For years, officials have tried to stop the slither. Could you train dogs to sniff out snakes the way they sniff out contraband? Apparently yes, in theory. In practice, the Everglades heat makes it dangerous for the dogs. So that option is limited. What about drones with infrared cameras? Also logical. Also not effective enough. The vegetation is too dense, and the snakes are too good at camouflage.

So now we arrive at the latest idea. If the snakes are going to eat opossums anyway, why not turn the animals into tracking devices? Mini Trojan horses in the River of Grass snake wars.

The concept is brutally simple. A collared critter goes about its daily rituals. Tree to tree. Trash can to campsite. Living its best life. At some point, it becomes a python’s lunch. The snake eats it whole, finds a nice quiet spot, and stops moving while it digests.

At which point, the GPS signals the dead stop. See graphic above.

That is when a python hunter is dispatched to the location. Finds the now very full, can’t eat another bite, snake. “Pays it a visit.” Case closed.

But I do have one question. Possibly two.

First, are we absolutely sure we have accounted for what opossums are most famous for? And I’m not talking about the silent “O” in the name.

I’m picturing a team of highly trained professionals racing through the Everglades toward a stationary, deceased marsupial GPS signal, only to find a perfectly healthy opossum lying there with a “gotcha” grin.

Am I the only one thinking this? Opossums play dead!

Second, PETA can’t be happy.

Still, there’s some logic here. When 98 out of a hundred opossums are likely to end up as python food anyway, why not turn an inevitable outcome into actionable data? It’s pretty grim, but then again, it is Florida.

The larger point is this. The python invasion is real. It’s reshaping the Everglades. Not great for wildlife, not great for the ecosystem, and probably not great for property values. It is, however, creating a very specific job market for people who retrieve partially digested GPS collars from snake parts unknown.

I’m not sure what’s next in the python battle, but have no fear, I will continue to monitor this situation on your behalf. Someone has to.

In more uplifting news, The Bystander launched as an audiobook last week and is already picking up some traction. And we are now officially counting down to the release of book two in The Lemaster Files, The Pawn, just a couple weeks away.

Exciting times. Pythons notwithstanding.

Have a great week.

--John