To tackle the invasion of Everglades in Florida by Burmese pythons, the state has called in Irula hunters from India.
The men, Masi Sadaiyan and Vadivel Gopal, from the Irula tribe of Tamila Nadu and Kerala, are working near Key Largo in Florida, which until this year was thought to be free of the snakes.
Being successful python hunters in their home country, India. They have been hired, along with two translators and detection dogs, for around US$ 68,000 earlier in January so that they track down and capture the giant snakes.
So far the Irula hunters have managed to bag 13 pythons in less than two weeks.
According to Miami Herald, the men have skills that are rooted in tracking techniques that “seem mysterious” even to Florida python experts.
The publication further stated the Irula hunters move slowly and rather than focusing on roads and levees — where snakes have typically been found basking — they head straight of thick bushes as they believe them to be better hunting grounds.
It was also reported in Miami Herald that when the pace of their approach towards the python slows down, everyone must stop to squat for a quick song of prayer — usually an ancient invocation mixed with an ad lib about either pythons or the weather — and smoking a beedi cigarette.
Key Largo Chamber of Commerce President Elizabeth Moscynski has been quoted as saying that if the methods used by Irula hunters work it would be great since they are a threat to the endangered species of animals in the area.
The effort is part of a series of what the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission calls “unique projects” to capture and kill the pythons, which have been rapidly spreading through the Everglades and dining on native animals, driving some nearly to extinction.
They will stay in Florida through February, working in the field, with University of Florida biologists and two-python detecting Labradors to find, capture and kill the snakes.
The project is the latest in a series of attempts to contain and eradicate the Burmese python. The snake is not native to Florida — although it is to India — but started showing up in the Everglades in the 1980s, probably after the release or escape of exotic pet snakes. In the past decade, their numbers have exploded to between 5,000 and 10,000, according to government estimates.
Initially, sightings were rare. Now they are almost commonplace, and native animals such as rabbits, raccoons, alligators and deer are disappearing at alarming rates. Videos and photos of dead pythons with their bellies distended by the large animals have gone viral several times over the years.