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CHARLOTTE OBSERVER (N Carolina) 16 September 06 A very ssspecial kind of sssurgery - Implanted transmitter will be used to track python in Everglades (Kathryn Their)
Davidson - In the herpetology lab at Davidson College on Friday afternoon, associate professor of biology Mike Dorcas prepares for surgery.
The patient: a Burmese python captured in the Florida Everglades earlier in the week and flown up on Delta.
Dorcas is one of a handful of scientists in the country who outfit snakes with radio transmitters.
He's working with the National Park Service to track discarded pet pythons threatening the Everglades' native species.
Once scientists understand the pythons' habits, they'll use the information to capture and euthanize them.
The tools of snake radio telemetry are nothing outlandish: surgical scissors, tweezers, a tiny transmitter, a refurbished human anesthesia machine.
When Dorcas has them ready, he calls out to his assistants: "What else do we need, guys?"
"The snake," says junior Nick DiLuzio.
"Oh, the snake," the professor says.
Dorcas lifts a screened cover off a wooden box. The python swivels her head and snaps at him. Dorcas throws a white towel over her head and grabs her neck, and seven students step in to lift her onto the lab table.
Senior Kristen Cecala, who's assisted Dorcas before, wedges a pencil in the python's jaws.
"Open wide, buddy," Dorcas says as he sticks a tube attached to an anesthetic into the snake's glottis.
Cecala pulls out the pencil, and the wait begins.
It takes snakes longer to go under than humans because they're cold-blooded, Dorcas explains.
The students hold the body down and check muscle tone for signs of relaxation while Cecala squirts saline into the snake's mouth for hydration.
About 10 minutes go by and the python hasn't fully unfurled.
"She's still a little bit kinky," says Dorcas, as the students giggle.
About five minutes later, when she's limper and Cecala reports that breathing has slowed, the students turn a section below the stomach on its side.
Dorcas dons a pair of rubber gloves.
He snips a 1-inch hole in the scales with surgical scissors and widens it with his fingers. With the tweezers, he pulls a small sample of muscle tissue out.
Snip. It goes into a vial for DNA testing.
The blood he blots with a towelette.
He plunges a data logger in the cavity and shoves it further through the body, like stuffing fruit in a Thanksgiving turkey.
"It's just like a radio station," he says of the device, the size of a small mouse. "Instead of playing songs, it just plays a beat."
That beat will monitor the python's body temperature, giving scientists a better handle on its movements since cold-blooded animals' temperature fluctuates with their surroundings.
In goes the tracking device, which looks like a small firecracker.
With a student's help, Dorcas pushes a metal tube under the skin and threads the tracker's wire through the tube so the wire lies flat in the body. Out comes the tube.
Dorcas sutures the wound, sewing seven stitches with his tweezers and scissors.
When he's done, he opens up another hole almost two feet lower. In this, he places another tracking device as a backup. He sutures the incision.
The students unfurl a measuring tape. She's four meters and 28 centimeters.
Just in time. The python's head is moving again, although slowly.
The group hefts her off the table and coil her back in the box.
Tracking Pythons in the Everglades
On Monday, the python operated on at Davidson College will be shipped back to the Everglades.
In about nine months, she'll be caught and the transmitters will be replaced.
The college's herpetology laboratory is assisting the National Park Service in tracking Burmese pythons, a species native to Southeast Asia. Pet owners in Florida often discard them in the park when the snakes reach their mature length.
The snakes are threatening native species in the park. The most well-known example was a 13-foot Burmese python that burst after swallowing a 6-foot alligator in October. The data scientists collect in the tracking process over the next year or two will be used to capture the snakes and exterminate them.
A very ssspecial kind of sssurgery

When the Media says things like that artical "Pet owners in Florida often discard them(Burmese)in the park when the snakes reach their mature length.

This is a flat out assumption! It also makes the reptile community look irresponsible. Have rangers caught people releasing there Burmese pythons into the Glades?? I think not.
And if we are discarding Burms when they reached mature length then There should be farel populations of Retics and Anacondas in the Everglades too, RIGHT? BUT THERE AREN'T ANY!!!!!

IT is BS Press like this that scares people into calling there congressman and inturn proposing laws or bans on reptiles in their state. I was seriously dissapointed with a National Geographic show just the other night that depicted us reptile owners Releasing the Burms in the Everglades.

The FWC is doing DNA testing on all the Burms caught in the Glades, When the results comeback that these snakes are related I hope they Publicly set the record staight.

While I'm with you--bearing a frustration that the acts of a small population are ruining things for the rest of us who try to be honorable and respectable with our hobby, I highly disagree with you on just about EVERY point you make. Your statements are in quotes while my responses follow. I'm eager to hear your take on my replies.

"When the Media says things like that artical "Pet owners in Florida often discard them(Burmese)in the park when the snakes reach their mature length.

This is a flat out assumption!"

This is not an assumption. This is fact. People have been discarding of their large Burms (as well as other species such as monitors and other large constrictors) Is it overexaggerated by using the word "often"? Possibly.

"It also makes the reptile community look irresponsible. Have rangers caught people releasing there Burmese pythons into the Glades?? I think not."

Whether they've actually caught people red-handed is not of issue. These Burms didn't just fall out of the sky. Clearly they were introduced by irresponsible owners.

"And if we are discarding Burms when they reached mature length then There should be farel populations of Retics and Anacondas in the Everglades too, RIGHT? BUT THERE AREN'T ANY!!!!!"

How do you know that "THERE AREN"T ANY?" Granted it's hearsay (as is any information you may have that led you to your conclusion that there aren't any), but I've heard of both Anacondas and Retics being discovered in the Glades.

"IT is BS Press like this that scares people into calling there congressman and inturn proposing laws or bans on reptiles in their state. I was seriously dissapointed with a National Geographic show just the other night that depicted us reptile owners Releasing the Burms in the Everglades."

It's not BS press if it's happening. Granted, the media may be exaggerating the situation (which they do with ANYTHING..see: Ratings), but there are obviously people who undertake ownership of a tiny 18 inch Burm thinking that as long as they keep it in a 10 gallon aquarium that it'll live in it forever. Suddenly, Bertha's 17 feet, 150 pounds and the owner is scared to even come near it so they ditch it out in the Glades (or other places that we may not hear of because the Burms probably don't have as great a chance of survival and therefore aren't becoming the same kind of nuisance).

"The FWC is doing DNA testing on all the Burms caught in the Glades, When the results comeback that these snakes are related I hope they Publicly set the record staight."

No one is disputing that a good number of these snakes are related. They are reproducing--there's bound to be some relation involved. Are they all related? I highly, highly doubt it.

-Marcus

"When the Media says things like that artical "Pet owners in Florida often discard them(Burmese)in the park when the snakes reach their mature length.

IT IS an assumption unless they are catching people releasing them. I’m not disagreeing with you that there are jacka$$es out there that let there animals go but just because there are Pythons in the everglades doesn’t mean that people put them there. How about Hurricane Andrew and other hurricanes over the years that have devastated that area. Another scenario could be that some owners of Burmese pythons in that area could have lost there pythons after a hurricane. A second scenario is that Miami is where a majority of imported reptiles come into this country, and it just so happens that Miami’s back door is the Everglades so it very well could happen that a shipment of pythons could have escaped and made their way into the Glades. Taking these things into consideration, and obviously disregarding that they fell out of the sky, I can say that it is an assumption! We are in America where you are innocent until proven guilty without a shadow of a doubt. That’s why I thought the proof WAS an issue.

How do you know that "THERE AREN"T ANY?" (Feral populations of Retics and Anacondas)

To answer that: I am a Native Florida Resident and have lived here my whole life. I know many Breeders and Reptile shop Owners in Florida, and one of my best friend’s dad Just retired but was a Sergeant in the FWC for 20 something years so I think I would have heard about feral populations of Anacondas and Retics if there were any. Besides, if there were the press would be having a field day with that! I can see it now, ALL KINDS OF HUGE SNAKES, TAKING OVER THE EVERGLADES! ALLIGATORS AND WILDLIFE RUNNING FOR THEIR LIVES!!

It's not BS press if it's happening????

I think it is BS if what is happening is based on ASSUMTIONS! I too am upset with the burms in the everglades, I believe they are a threat to the ecosystem and they should be removed. But it is the fear of snakes AND the bad press that is changing the laws. What about the feral populations of parrots that are destroying natural vegetation & Crops and invading territories of native FL birds for over two decades? I have heard about the damage they cause but they’re not “scary like snakes” so the press never reports that. What about the armadillo that was introduced to FL that prays on native reptiles and amphibians. They are found in North FL all the way down to the Keys. That’s a large range but somehow that does’t causes a stir In the press’s eye. Maybe its because they feed on reptiles.