UF’s Research and Education Center began receiving a series of unusual specimens Saturday: Burmese pythons shot by hunters in South Florida wildlife preserves.
The Ft. Lauderdale-based center is a drop-off point where contestants in the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission-sponsored Python Challenge can turn in their trophies.
FWC spokeswoman Diane Hirth said the challenge aims to reduce the species’ presence in Florida.
During the contest, which began Saturday and lasts until Feb. 10, participants roam through four designated wildlife preserves in South Florida to capture and kill Burmese pythons, which are considered an invasive species in Florida. As part of the contest, the FWC will give cash awards to the two hunters who bring in the longest snake and the most snakes.
As of Tuesday, the center received 11 dead snakes, said Frank Mazzotti, director of UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences’ Wildlife Ecology Department in Ft. Lauderdale.
Mazzotti is working with a team of about 12 biologists and students to perform a necropsy on each captured snake.
Within 48 hours of receiving a python carcass at the lab, Mazzotti said, one to two researchers stretch it out on a surgical table and cut it open. They remove the reproductive organs, digestive tract and tissue samples.
Wildlife biologist Joy Vinci, 31, said the dissections keep the center busy.
The team is collecting the data to learn more about the invasive snakes’ presence. Mazzotti said gathering the genetic data is important because it allows researchers to distinguish whether a snake is part of the established python population in the wild or a released or escaped pet.
In 2012, the federal government banned the importation and interstate sale of the pythons, Hirth said. State law prohibits their possession or sale. She said the largest captured Burmese python documented in Florida was about 17.5 feet.
Mazzotti said he can’t guess how many pythons the nearly 1,000 registered participants will capture by the end of the contest.
“If one in 10 catches a snake, that would be 100 snakes, and I would be ecstatic,” he said.
