Wednesday, November 4, 2009

KEY LARGO -- Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Officer Jason Rafter kneels down to the grass, focusing raptly on a 6-foot-long Burmese python.

As the python coils, wiggles and heaves, Rafter makes for its head, intending to grasp the beast for a secure capture. Suddenly the snake, angered by the unwanted attention, hisses and rises into the classic serpent's strike pose.

Only slightly daunted, Rafter moves deftly backwards and waits for the moment to diffuse. Then he continues with his pursuit. A moment later Rafter holds the python comfortably up to his chest, posing for pictures.

"That snake was a lot more live than the last one I captured," he says shortly after the shutters stop clicking, the snake now resting safely in a canvas bag. The manicured grounds of the Murray Nelson Government and Cultural Center and the waters of Tarpon Basin loom gently in the background.

If this doesn't sound like your typical roadside wildlife capture, that's because it wasn't. Rafter was among a couple dozen Keys-based wildlife officers and officials from other agencies, including Mosquito Control and county government, who turned out last Tuesday for a snake capture training session organized by The Nature Conservancy.

The program was part of an initiative called the Python Patrol, in which a total of 25 individuals, separated geographically up and down the Keys, have been designated as first responders to exotic snake sightings along the roads and highways and in the hammocks and preserves of the archipelago.

"The best thing we can do locally is to make sure if we see something, it gets picked up," said Alison Higgins, The Nature Conservancy's Florida Keys land conservation manager.

Unlike the Everglades, where the Burmese python is known to be breeding prodigiously, and where wildlife officials have removed hundreds of the exotic snakes in each of the past several years, the Florida Keys are yet to experience a significant influx of the serpent.

After an initial Burmese python was found in Key Largo in April 2007 -- its belly full with two endangered Key Largo woodrats -- wildlife officials and The Nature Conservancy stepped up their surveillance. Another six exotic snakes, not all of them pythons, were recovered in late 2007. But things were quiet in 2008.

More recently, authorities captured a snake last month in the Crocodile Lake National Wildlife Refuge, and another was found on Plantation Key during the late summer.

Ron Rozar, a biologist who heads up the United States Geological Survey's South Florida snake removal program, said that it's unlikely that pythons, or other exotic snakes such as the boa constrictor, have begun breeding in the Keys as they have done in the Everglades.

But that's why it is important to be vigilant now, especially as the coming cool weather flushes the cold-blooded reptiles out of the sheltered wilds and into exposed sunny areas, like roadways.

Once established in the Keys, the Burmese would feast prodigiously on native species like the endangered woodrat and the endangered Key Largo cottonmouse. They'll also eat wading birds, house cats -- even Key deer if they make it down to Big Pine Key.

In the last two months Rozar's team has collected a dozen pythons toward the top of the 18-Mile Stretch.

"Once you have a reproducing population it gets increasingly difficult to get rid of the animals," he said. "It's so much easier to deal with if you keep it from getting to that point."

Higgins says that if you spot a python, or any snake that could be exotic to the Keys, call the Python Patrol at 888-IVE-GOT-1.

rsilk@keysnews.com