Speaker 1: Today Parts Pervilion is turning into a cooking show. We're
Speaker 1: going to be talking about how one should prepare snakes,
Speaker 1: specifically fifteen foot long Burmese pythons that have invaded and
Speaker 1: wrecked the ecosystem of the state of Florida. But appetite, Hello,
Speaker 1: and welcome back yet again to Parts Pervilion, the environmental
Speaker 1: podcast from Bloomberg Law. I'm David Schultz, and Merry Christmas
Speaker 1: to one and all. You might be sitting down later
Speaker 1: this week to a Christmas ham or a Christmas turkey,
Speaker 1: but wildlife officials in the state of Florida say you
Speaker 1: might want to consider swapping that out for a Christmas python.
Speaker 1: Pythons are a non native invasive species in Florida, and
Speaker 1: the havoc they've wreaked on the ecosystem there is nothing
Speaker 1: short of catastrophic. Florida has tried dozens of tactics over
Speaker 1: the past couple of decades to eliminate these massive snakes
Speaker 1: or at least get their populations under control, but nothing
Speaker 1: seems to be working so now. As Bloomberg Glat Jennifer
Speaker 1: Kay reports, the States mindset seems to be if you
Speaker 1: can't beat him, eat him. Earlier this month, Florida Wildlife
Speaker 1: officials launched a study looking into whether pythons are safe
Speaker 1: for widespread human consumption. They're hoping the answer is yes,
Speaker 1: and that creating new demand for python meat will incentivize
Speaker 1: more killing of these troublesome reptiles. I spoke with Jennifer
Speaker 1: from her home in Miami Beach about why it's actually
Speaker 1: come to this, and about how this python problem got
Speaker 1: started in the first place. Florida, you might know, is
Speaker 1: the I think it's home to most invasive species, definitely
Speaker 1: most invasive reptiles and amphibians anywhere in the world. Animals
Speaker 1: that come here through trade through they come in as pets.
Speaker 1: They end up out in the Everglades, and they love
Speaker 1: it here, like snowbirds, like grandparents, like spring breakers. They
Speaker 1: just think it's great and they look at the Everglades,
Speaker 1: especially as just one giant buffet. So that's kind of
Speaker 1: where the pythons come in. It's believed that they come
Speaker 1: pretty much entirely from the exotic pet trade. There are
Speaker 1: some stories about warehouses that got destroyed outside Miami by
Speaker 1: Hurricane Andrew in nineteen ninety two. That was one of
Speaker 1: the big hurricanes that hit the Miami area, and lots
Speaker 1: of baby pythons apparently got flung into the Everglades, where
Speaker 1: they found it to be a very nice home. But
Speaker 1: generally it's really not uncommon for people have these exotic
Speaker 1: pets and they get too big and too expensive and
Speaker 1: too ornery to keep feeding or to care for in
Speaker 1: their house. They realize they're not such good pets after all,
Speaker 1: so they just release them into the wild where they
Speaker 1: don't have any predators. There's nothing here that knows what
Speaker 1: to do when a python kind of rolls up into
Speaker 1: the neighborhood, so they just kind of take over. Like
Speaker 1: what are they doing to the environment? I mean, I've
Speaker 1: heard that they, you know, eat native species, like you know,
Speaker 1: rabbits and foxes, but like, can you elaborate on that,
Speaker 1: Like what kind of environmental devastation are these snakes reeking?
Speaker 1: So the easy answer is that pythons just eat way
Speaker 1: too much. They eat everything. They have nearly wiped out
Speaker 1: the Everglades populations of native mammals, which again have never
Speaker 1: never saw anything so voracious in the Everglades before these
Speaker 1: pythons showed up. Researchers say that since nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 1: Populations of raccoons have dropped ninety nine percent, bobcats have
Speaker 1: dropped eighty seven percent. Possome populations have dropped ninety nine percent.
Speaker 1: There are parts in the Everglades that just used to
Speaker 1: have lots of rabbits or fox and now those animals
Speaker 1: have just effectively disappeared. And all of these animals are
Speaker 1: believed to be in the stomach of a python somewhere.
Speaker 1: They also eat animals that are on the endangered species list,
Speaker 1: So cute little things like the key Largo wood rat
Speaker 1: that we're spending a lot of time and money to
Speaker 1: try to keep around, pythons will eat them. And all
Speaker 1: of this means too that the pythons are eating food
Speaker 1: that Florida panthers, alligators and other native predators are supposed
Speaker 1: to be eating. They're just not leaving anything for the
Speaker 1: native animals. But let's talk about what Florida has been
Speaker 1: doing to try to combat this, because, as you mentioned,
Speaker 1: you know, this goes all the way back to Hurricane
Speaker 1: Andrew in nineteen ninety two and maybe even before then.
Speaker 1: You know what kind of things have wildlife officials in
Speaker 1: Florida tried to do to stop this well, they've tried
Speaker 1: a lot of things. They are For the past several years,
Speaker 1: they've the state of Florida pays contractors to go out
Speaker 1: and hunt the snake. These men and women get paid
Speaker 1: minimum wage, but they are paid bonuses for any snake
Speaker 1: that measures over four feet long, and these snakes get
Speaker 1: well over four feet long. The longest one on record
Speaker 1: is eighteen feet nine inches and that was just in
Speaker 1: October that was that record was set. The state is
Speaker 1: also working with the federal government to try to remove
Speaker 1: these pythons from within Everglades National Park, where usually there
Speaker 1: is no hunting allowed. The state also encourages the public
Speaker 1: to get involved. So on your next Florida vacation, you
Speaker 1: too could come and do some python hunting. If that's
Speaker 1: your thing, I'll pass. You don't need apartment, you don't
Speaker 1: need a hunting license. You are allowed on private land
Speaker 1: to take out a python. If you come across one,
Speaker 1: you are encouraged to do so, or you can just
Speaker 1: there's an app where you can report python sightings if
Speaker 1: you just want to stay hands off. They've experimented with traps.
Speaker 1: They tagged pythons with radio trackers so that they could
Speaker 1: follow one snake to other snakes. Hopefully. This year, Florida
Speaker 1: lawmakers passed a law allowing the Wildlife Commission to use
Speaker 1: drones to monitor the Everglades four signs of pythons and
Speaker 1: other invasive plant and animal species. They're also training dogs
Speaker 1: to sniff them out. Yeah, and you sent me some
Speaker 1: photos of some really cute dogs that are I guess,
Speaker 1: snake hunting dogs. A very good boy named Truman, a
Speaker 1: black labrador, scored the first snake capture in that program
Speaker 1: just earlier this month. He bagged an eight foot python
Speaker 1: somewhere out in Miami Dade County. And that's that's been
Speaker 1: That's been something in the works for a while, and
Speaker 1: early iterations of the program ran into the dogs ran
Speaker 1: into the same problem that humans do in Florida. They
Speaker 1: weren't sure how to handle the humidity for long periods
Speaker 1: of time. But they seem to be overcoming that problem.
Speaker 1: So that's that's one more, one more tool in the
Speaker 1: fight against pythons. It seems like the state is taking
Speaker 1: a kitchen sink approach to uh fighting this problem. Upon
Speaker 1: very much intended because the latest thing that they're doing
Speaker 1: is it sounds like they're Florida is trying to get
Speaker 1: restaurants and individuals to put python on the dinner plate.
Speaker 1: Can you talk about the efforts to make python meet
Speaker 1: a delicacy in Florida. Yes. Apparently there's enough interest from
Speaker 1: people asking if it's okay to eat pythons that the
Speaker 1: state is now exploring whether they can start recommending this
Speaker 1: as a good idea. The state is now taking tish
Speaker 1: samples from pythons in seven counties, so kind of across
Speaker 1: the Greater Everglades ecosystem, just to see what kind of
Speaker 1: mercury levels they have. I always heard that you shouldn't
Speaker 1: eat pythons from the Everglades because they were just chock
Speaker 1: full of mercury. They're at the top of the food
Speaker 1: chain and they just absorb a lot of mercury from
Speaker 1: the environment. But the state is now thinking, you know,
Speaker 1: there might be parts of South Florida where they're not
Speaker 1: absorbing so much mercury, so it might be okay to
Speaker 1: eat them, much like iguanas, which are another invasive species,
Speaker 1: or lionfish, which are another invasive fish that the state
Speaker 1: encourages people to hunt and eat. So no one's going
Speaker 1: to be ordering snake for Christmas or New Year's Dinner
Speaker 1: this year. But it's something that they might be looking
Speaker 1: at further down the road as just another way to
Speaker 1: tell people, Hey, we have this problem. If you want
Speaker 1: to help solve it, just to order up a snake burger.
Speaker 1: I gotta say I didn't realize this was sort of
Speaker 1: a bottom up thing that people were coming to the
Speaker 1: state and saying, like, I want to eat snakes? Is
Speaker 1: it possible to do that? And the state is like, well,
Speaker 1: let us look into that. I thought it was sort
Speaker 1: of a top down like Florida was saying please eat snakes.
Speaker 1: You know, I guess it's the other way around. Florida
Speaker 1: is definitely saying please help us get rid of these snakes.
Speaker 1: There are just potentially hundreds of thousands of them out there.
Speaker 1: They are really hard to find. They are never going
Speaker 1: to go away entirely, but this Florida wants all the
Speaker 1: help it can get to get rid of them. There
Speaker 1: are people who take the python skins and we'll turn
Speaker 1: them into a very nice handbag for you, or a
Speaker 1: nice pair of shoes. I've seen alligator couches, so I
Speaker 1: don't know why you couldn't do that with enough python skins.
Speaker 1: You know, the state has been pretty successful with getting
Speaker 1: people to put lionfish on the menu. That would probably
Speaker 1: be the most comparable iguana. People some people me included,
Speaker 1: don't really want to eat iguanas so much. I think
Speaker 1: python will be one of those like super specialized delicacies
Speaker 1: as well. Yeah. No, And I think that's not a
Speaker 1: like an unheard of strategy. I mean, I know that
Speaker 1: up here in the Chesapeake Bay Area, I think they've
Speaker 1: had a lot of success with that. The last thing
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask, well, the second the last thing
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you is, let's take a step
Speaker 1: back here and talk about you know, overall strategy. As
Speaker 1: I mentioned, or as we talked about, the state is
Speaker 1: throwing everything I can at this problem, and it just
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like it's making a lot of progress. I mean,
Speaker 1: correct me if I'm wrong, But like, is this something
Speaker 1: where it seems like maybe eventually something will work, or
Speaker 1: are we talking about something where they're going to have
Speaker 1: to take like radical new measures if they really want
Speaker 1: to make a dent here, like things that we haven't
Speaker 1: even thought of yet. It might be in the realm
Speaker 1: of things we haven't even thought of yet it's the
Speaker 1: goal with pions is just to control them as much
Speaker 1: as possible. The idea that we could ever get rid
Speaker 1: of them entirely has gone out the window years ago.
Speaker 1: But in Florida's defense, it's a really difficult problem to solve.
Speaker 1: The snakes have no predators here and they eat anything
Speaker 1: in their way, especially as they get bigger. They reproduce
Speaker 1: in large numbers, and they have The pythons have expanded
Speaker 1: kind of throughout the Everglades ecosystem. That's not just the
Speaker 1: National Park west of Miami. It's up north into Broward
Speaker 1: and Palm Beach Counties, west into the big Cypress Preserve
Speaker 1: near Naples, And as big as they are, they're really
Speaker 1: hard to find unless you happen to come across one
Speaker 1: on a levee or a road. They tend to just
Speaker 1: blend into the landscape. And then that landscape is really
Speaker 1: hard for people to navigate through. Even though it's surrounded
Speaker 1: by densely populated coastlines, it's mostly water. There's really sharp
Speaker 1: sawgrass that you really can't walk through, and it grows
Speaker 1: shoulder high. The Everglades are also like incredibly big. I
Speaker 1: always forget it's not just like Miami's Backyard. It's one
Speaker 1: of the largest national parks in the continental US. It
Speaker 1: is a massive ecosystem, and most of it you can't
Speaker 1: get through unless you have an air boat. So it's
Speaker 1: really it's a daunting thing for the state to have
Speaker 1: to deal with finally closing things out. How does one
Speaker 1: cook a python? What is the optimal way to prepare
Speaker 1: a python? I would think that it would just be
Speaker 1: really stringy and tough, so you'd have to do like
Speaker 1: a braize, you know. But I could see maybe like
Speaker 1: high heat, like a saute or a stirrify. What well,
Speaker 1: if you were going to cook up python, how would
Speaker 1: you prepare it? I would just like to establish I
Speaker 1: would not be cooking a python. You have thought about this,
Speaker 1: possibly more than I. Maybe maybe this is more about
Speaker 1: me than it is about you. No, what would you?
Speaker 1: I don't know? How how would you? How would you
Speaker 1: do it? One one of the state python hunters, Donna Khalil,
Speaker 1: posts on her Instagram some of the many ways that
Speaker 1: she's been able to cook python. It seems like putting
Speaker 1: them in some sort of slow cooker. That's what That's
Speaker 1: what I thought. That's what I thought. You really have
Speaker 1: to tenderize it. It's kind of a tough, meaty sort
Speaker 1: of thing. Uh. You makes you realize, well, this is
Speaker 1: why people make shoes out of them and not steak. Right,
Speaker 1: It's it's the skin part that is the that's that's
Speaker 1: the stuff you want. You people really haven't looked at
Speaker 1: them as a food source previously. Apparently you can make
Speaker 1: python jerky out of them and that will sustain you
Speaker 1: on your your long python hunts through the Everglades. I
Speaker 1: guess a stew might be the best way to go.
Speaker 1: I know, that's that's how iguanas gets served quite a bit.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, I hey, look, I've eaten steak that
Speaker 1: tasted like a shoe, so I you know, don't see
Speaker 1: why I wouldn't just eat something that basically is a shue.
Speaker 1: Jennifer Kay, thank you so much for this very Floridian discussion.
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm already in Florida right now just
Speaker 1: talking and thinking about all this stuff. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: You're welcome. That was Bloomberg Glog correspondent Jennifer Kay speaking
Speaker 1: to us from Miami Beach, Florida. And that's it for
Speaker 1: today's episode of Parts per Billion If you want more
Speaker 1: environmental news, check us out on Twitter. We use the
Speaker 1: handle at environment just that at environment, I'm at David B. Schultz.
Speaker 1: If you've got anything on your mind you'd like to share.
Speaker 1: Today's episode of Parts per Billion was produced by myself
Speaker 1: and Josh Block. Parts Pavilion was created by Jessica Coombs
Speaker 1: and Rachel Daegel. The music of today's episode is a
Speaker 1: Message by Jazar and Road to Memphis by Paul Bushara
Speaker 1: and Emmanuel Jeane Bennet. They were used under a Creative
Speaker 1: Commons license. Thank you everyone for listening, See you later.
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