Pythons are wiping out mammals and birds in Florida's Everglades National Park

An American alligator and a Burmese python struggle to prevail in Everglades National Park. Pythons have been known to kill and eat alligators in the park.

Photo by Lori Oberhofer, National Park Service.Read here.

By Brid-Aine Parnell Non-native Burmese pythons are chowing down on the local populace to such an extent that observations of many animals have declined by 99 per cent in the last eight years, and the poor old bunny rabbit hasn't been seen at all.

"Road surveys totaling 56,971 km from 2003–2011 documented a 99.3 per cent decrease in the frequency of raccoon observations, decreases of 98.9 per cent and 87.5 per cent for opossum and bobcat observations, respectively, and failed to detect rabbits," the study, published in the journal for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), said.

The researchers also found that more mammals were missing in areas where the snakes were well-established than in places where they had only been seen recently...Read here....

In Florida Everglades, pythons and anacondas dominate food chain

By Darryl Fears.photo

Every child learns this sad and basic truth about nature: The snake eats the rabbit.
But in the southernmost part of the Florida Everglades, things have taken a really wild turn. Pythons and anacondas are eating everything. The most common animals in Everglades National Park — rabbits, raccoons, opposums and bobcats — are almost gone, according to a study released Monday...Read and view photo gallery