Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
The deer was larger, but the python ate it anyway
Maybe its eyes were larger than its stomach.
The meal happened nearly three years ago and if the Burmese python was alive today it might still be imitating a classic Alka-Seltzer commercial and moaning, “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing.”
In what researchers believe is the largest-ever documented case of predator-toprey ratio involving a Burmese python, a python weighing 31 ½ pounds ingested a young, white-tailed deer weighing 35 pounds.
The Naples-based Conservancy of Southwest Florida Thursday outlined its research from an April 7, 2015 finding in Collier-Seminole State Park, which surrounds U.S. 41 in the Naples area.
There, biologists from the Conservancy and park managers discovered an 11-foot female Burmese python that was “visibly distended by a large food bulge,” organization officials said in an online announcement.
After it was caught, the snake began to regurgitate the fawn.
Along with possibly being the largestever prey ratio for a Burmese python, Con- servancy scientists say it could be the largest ratio ever for any species of python.
Its findings will be published in the March 2018 issue of Herpetological Review.
Scientists think the discovery may provide additional evidence of how the nonnative Burmese python is hurting native wildlife populations throughout the Everglades.
“Imagine the potential consequences to the state and federally protected Florida panther if Burmese pythons adversely affect the number of white-tailed deer, a panther’s primary prey,” said Ian Bartoszek, a Conservancy biologist.
The finding also has researchers wondering if Burmese pythons are hurting the deer population by killing young fawns before they are mature enough to mate. According to studies cited by the Conservancy, Burmese pythons are responsible for a 90 percent decline in small mammal populations in the eastern Everglades.
Florida is involved in an active python eradication project. The South Florida Water Management District pays eligible hunters $8.10 an hour to look for pythons on the land it manages. Bonuses are paid when larger snake nests with eggs are eliminated.