West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP) – They even see, move and smell the kind of hairy Everglades Marsh Rabbit that a Burmese Python would like to eat. But these rabbits are robots intended to lure the gigantic invasive snakes out of their hiding places.
It is the last attempt by the Water Management District in Zuid -Florida to eliminate as many pythons as possible from the Everglades, where they decimate indigenous species with their vorarious appetite. In Everglades National Park, civil servants say that the snakes have eliminated 95% of the small mammals and thousands of birds.
“Removing them is fairly simple. It is detection. We have a hard time finding them,” said Mike Kirkland, leading invasive animal biologist for the water district. “They are so well camouflaged in the field.”
The Water District and researchers from the University of Florida have used 120 robot rabbits this summer as an experiment. Earlier there was an attempt to use living rabbits as a snake lures, but that became too expensive and time -consuming, said Kirkland.
The robots are simple toy rabbits, but placed afterwards to emit heat, a scent and to make natural movements to resemble any other normal rabbit. “They look like a real rabbit,” said Kirkland … they are driven on solar energy and can be switched on remotely. They are placed in small pens that are checked by a video camera that sends a signal when a python is nearby.
“Then I can use one of our many contractors to remove the Python,” said Kirkland.
The total costs per robot rabbit are around $ 4,000, financed by the water district, he added.
Pythons are not native to Florida, but are located in the swampy, subtropical Everglades by escaping from houses or by people who let them go when they become overgrown pets. According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, a female Python can lay between 50 and 100 eggs at the same time between 50 and 100 eggs with a pregnancy period of 60-90 days.
It is not easy to find clear estimates of the number of Pythons in Florida. The US Geological Survey recently reported a Ballpark set of 'tens of thousands', while other official estimates are as high as 300,000 snakes. They have few natural enemies, although there are incidental confrontations with alligators, and other predators, such as Bobcats and Coyotes, their eggs will eat.
Since 2000, more than 23,000 of the snakes have been removed from the wild, says the Wildlife Commission. The robot rabbits are the latest attempt to tackle snakes that are on average between 10 and 16 feet (3 to 5 meters) grown long.
“Every invasive python that is removed makes a difference for the environment of Florida and his indigenous animals in the wild,” said Ron Bergeron, a member of the Water district board.
Pythons can be killed humanly throughout the year in private countries and in countries managed by the Wildlife Commission in the entire state.
Every year the committee has a “Florida Python Challenge” that bears cash prizes for most imprisoned pythons, the longest snake and so on. This year, 934 people from 30 states took part in the effort in July and conquered 294 Pythons with a top prize of $ 10,000 to a participant who took 60 of the reptiles.
It is too early to determine how successful the Robot Rabbit project will be, but officials say that initial results are a reason for optimism.
“This part of the project is still in its infancy,” said Kirkland. “However, we are convinced that this will work as soon as we have enough time to work out some of these details.”
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Anderson reported from St. Petersburg, Florida.
