Possums Provide Way to Catch Pythons. The Hard Way

Snake ate one with a GPS collar, and researchers were able to track and kill it
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 13, 2023 11:03 AM CST
Possums Provide Way to Catch Pythons. The Hard Way
File photo of a possum.   (Getty/shoemcfly)

Researchers didn't set out to turn possums into python meals, but their study nevertheless suggests a novel way to curb the invasive snake population in Florida. As the Tampa Bay Times explains, wildlife researchers fitted possums and raccoons with GPS collars to study their populations near the Crocodile Lake National Wildlife Refuge. One of the possum collars emitted a mortality signal to the research team, meaning the possum had stopped moving for at least four hours, but the collar started pinging again a few hours later as it continued to move. As it turns out, a Burmese python had eaten the possum, collar and all. Researchers then tracked and euthanized the 12-foot-long, 62-pound snake, which turned out to be very pregnant, per a news release from Southern Illinois University.

The same fate befell a collared raccoon, and the researchers were able to then kill a second pregnant python. They nearly got a third, but in that case, the snake pooped out the collar. Another six of the 43 collars in the experiment have simply disappeared, suggesting that the collared animals, or the snakes that ate them, moved beyond the study's range. "We're not doing anything but observing the animals doing their natural thing, and they're unfortunately getting consumed and it's leading to these python removals," Michael Cove of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, a member of the research team, tells the Times.

The plan now is to ramp up the process, perhaps with cheaper GPS collars more tailored to the circumstances. That is, small enough for the possums and raccoons to wear without much trouble, but big enough so the snakes can't pass them. Incorporating drones into the mix might making tracking the pythons easier. "The beauty of this project is that there are size limitations to the snakes," Cove says. "These are big raccoons and larger male opossums, so big snakes that are taking these—the largest snakes are big females." (More discoveries stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X