MIAMI HERALD (Florida) 14 November 06 Secret agents slither into Everglades - With the python invasion of the Everglades showing no signs of stopping, scientists and agencies launched a plan to step up eradication efforts. (Curtis Morgan)

Scientists battling to eradicate the giant pythons that have invaded the Everglades unleashed an experimental weapon Monday -- another giant python.

The 10-foot female, equipped with twin radio transmitters implanted under its iridescent skin, will become part of an expanded troop of ''Judas animals'' -- wired pythons set free to lead scientists to other snakes in the sawgrass, tree islands and other spots where they are showing up in record numbers.

''They sort of rat out their own kind,'' said Everglades National Park biologist Skip Snow.

By next year, researchers could even be concocting chemical weaponry -- a synthetic python love potion enticing enough to lure lust-driven constrictors into traps.

They're all part of a growing arsenal in a campaign by the park, federal and state wildlife agencies and regional water managers to control the spread of the Burmese python -- an exotic predator big, bad and voracious enough to potentially upset the natural balance of the Everglades.

Researchers have found the remains of a menagerie of native wildlife, from birds to bobcats, in the guts of captured snakes. Photographs of one bizarre encounter last year made the invasion worldwide news when a 13-footer exploded after swallowing more than it could digest -- a six-foot alligator.

''We know one thing, there is no silver bullet for controlling this problem,'' said Everglades superintendent Dan Kimball at a news conference at park headquarters near Homestead.

Beyond targeting snakes in the wild, a handful of agencies are taking aim at importers, who ship in thousands of the Southeast Asian constrictors annually, and snake owners.

By February, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission will consider new rules requiring owners of Burmese pythons and four other large constrictors to acquire state permits and put the snakes in locked cages. Another rule would require inserting microchips -- similar to the IDs routinely implanted in many furry pets -- to make it easier to track scofflaws.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the South Florida Water Management District -- which has thrown $50,000 into research and started rounding up snakes on its vast land holdings -- also are pushing to add Burmese pythons to a list of ''injurious'' species, which would make it more difficult to both import and buy them.

It's increasingly clear that pythons, which can top 20 feet in length and rank among the world's largest snakes, aren't likely to slither away on their own, said Snow.

With nearly two months left in the year, the number of captures in Everglades National Park has jumped to 142 -- a 50 percent increase over all of 2005. While that may not sound like a lot of snakes in a vast park, annual captures represent only a fraction of the actual population.

There are even more showing up outside the park. Bob Hill, who wrangles snakes on state lands owned by the South Florida Water Management District, said he's handled ''hundreds'' of calls in the last few years. In the winter, Hill said, the snakes particularly seem to enjoy sunning themselves on the L-67 East levee.

Until 2000, only about a dozen pythons had ever been documented in the park. For reasons not yet understood, it's been a steady and disturbing climb since.

The python problem was initially caused by pet owners no longer able or willing to care for a critter that is capable, potentially, of crushing the life out of them. A few owners have been strangled by overgrown pets.

While dumping is still considered a major source of snakes, the larger concern is that a foreign species has not only managed to survive but thrive.

The Burmese are breeding, producing offspring that eat just about anything -- and a lot of anything. Snow and Stephen Secor, a University of Alabama biologist, have estimated for a python to reach an adult breeding size of about 70 pounds, it would have to gulp some 210 pounds of assorted mice, birds, rabbits, raccoons and gators.

Even controlling the snakes already out there will be a daunting challenge.

Snow, who has tracked the proliferation of pythons for years and now is in charge of finding ways to wipe them out, said researchers are only now developing good ways to track and trap creatures that can live in just about any Everglades habitat, wet or dry.

They're also virtually invisible, except when they choose to sunbathe along roads or swim in a creek. Some dozen news photographers struggled to locate a barely moving 10-footer freed in a dry sawgrass prairie -- right in front of their lenses.

Radio-tracking has proved a promising first step. Last year, scientists released four snakes, each surgically implanted with two $250 radio transmitters about the size of a lipstick tube with a foot-long wire antenna.

Scientists recovered all four snakes and captured a dozen others, successful enough to up the high-tech squad to seven for this breeding season.

The radio tracks also revealed some fascinating facts about the big snakes' movement through the Everglades. During wet season, one was recorded moving an astounding 20 miles or so from the east side of the park all the way to Big Cypress National Preserve.

Snow speculates big snakes are capable of covering long distances quickly, their heavy bodies apparently buoyed by the rising water -- a trait that also would allow them to easily cruise South Florida's network of canals.

During the drier winter, they tend to stay in smaller areas, such as tree islands, which can be prey-rich wildlife havens but also may be important breeding grounds.

Because pythons are wily hunters, patiently waiting to pounce on passing prey, a trap baited with a rodent or rabbit may not be all that effective. So researchers are looking for an alternative and possibly more enticing lure -- sexual attraction.

They're studying the scent trails snakes leave behind as chemical signals to others of their species. Isolating and synthesizing sexual scents, called pheromones, could become a critical tool for attracting wily pythons into traps.

Snow has just finished an application for $102,000 in federal funding to launch the study.

''Snakes have some kind of way to find each other,'' he said. ``If we can get a clue to what that is, it will certainly help.''
Secret agents slither into Everglades

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