No clue on the rationale Tod. The snake that Steve saw, he would have been discharging a firearm from what is considered a road or road shoulder and that is a universal no-no in the state. But then it is also on Water Management property so I believe they could get him for felony trespass as well (if they wanted to be jerks about it), even though the road is heavily travelled. Steve was talking with an FWC (our game and fish) LEO here on the day he saw that snake and they went round and round on what kind of sense it makes. The LEO agreed with Steve on the idiocy and told him that if he were in a boat, it would be okay to dispatch the snake.
That's like with Purple Swamphens down here. They are spreading north. They are like purple gallinules on steroids. There is also a native population of them in one of the US Territories in the Pacific so they are covered under the migratory bird treaty and cannot be hunted in FL. They also appear to have a detrimental effect on native birds. And they are spreading north. We see them pretty regularly now in the marshes near Steve. It used to be it was a south of Lake Okeechobee thing. FWC at least has wanted to try to get them added to the list for the hunting season. There was even a pilot season done at one of the Stormwater Treatment Areas that I got to participate in. There was some concern that hunters would mistake them for purple gallinules. There was not one single gallinule killed during that season. It was fun and IMO anyone who mistakes them for a gallinule is a fool because they are three times the size of a gallinule. Unfortunately, to add them to our duck season there has to be a lot of lawyering done because of their status on the migratory bird treaty and it just is not high on the list of priorities for USFWS. Which in some ways I get. But there is a chance to do something about them now, at least add them to the regular duck season, and even better put no limit on them, and people will hunt them. Their populations could be controlled, perhaps even reduced quite a bit. It isn't a priority right now though and in a world where time is money and there is only so much money for environmental agencies, I get not pursuing something that isn't a priority.
I imagine that is exactly what happened with they pythons and lion fish. It wasn't a priority and the populations continued spreading. Now the state has begun trying to do something about it because it has finally become a priority, at the cost of 90-99% of the small mammal population in the case of the pythons. Who knows if it will even be effective. I have heard that there is some talk, and maybe it has gone through, of allowing the licensed python hunters to allow them to use their airboats within the vast no motor zone of Everglades National Park. Not sure that went through or if it was just talk.
Some of the Wildlife management areas in south florida do allow year round harvest of non native reptiles (pythons aren't FLs only issue for non native reptiles) with no bag or size limit. I don't think you even need a hunting license for them either. But you can't use firearms outside of normal hunting seasons or within explicitly stated dates. You can use crossbows though. So there is now opportunity for year round hunting of the pythons on some wildlife management areas.
As I said earlier, probably the most effective thing for reducing the python population will be a multi week or whole month hard freeze in South Florida. It won't kill all of the snakes and iguanas but it would put a big dent in the populations. And MAYBE it would give us a chance to get a handle on them. And maybe it would give the everglades a chance to recover the small mammal populations.
Sadly, a freeze like that would be detrimental to many other south florida species (like snook). But realistically, it will likely be the only way to have a chance at getting a handle on the snakes.
