Fort Myers Florida Weekly

SNAKE HUNTERS

Pythons are running out of food in the eastern Everglades and are slithering into Broward, Palm Beach and Collier counties.



Dusty “Wildman” Crum with a Burmese python he caught. COURTESY PHOTO

Dusty “Wildman” Crum with a Burmese python he caught. Joey Waves / Courtesy Photo

AT 11 P.M., UNDER A MOONless sky, Dusty “Wildman” Crum eased into Everglades waters to grab a Burmese python he had spotted at the surface. “It immediately slipped out of my hands, so I dove down and scooped it up and wrapped it around a cypress tree,” Mr. Crum recounted. “I was losing it again, so I bit down on its tail, and then I could feel it stopping.” With the help of a videographer filming the skirmish, he wrapped his legs around the python and groped to find its head. When he did, the snake tried to strike at him and started “flinging me around like a rag doll, carrying me farther into the swamp.”

The python hunter won the “epic battle. I was sore for days.”

“It’s more like dancing with the pythons,” said hunter Geoff Roepstorff. “You grab them by the tail and dodge their attacks until they wear down.”

“With all that muscle, they wear out quickly, in about 10 minutes,” said Robbie Roepstorff, Geoff Roepstorff’s wife, fellow hunter and business partner.

Dusty “Wildman” Crum surveys Everglades terrain for pythons to capture. COURTESY PHOTOS

Dusty “Wildman” Crum surveys Everglades terrain for pythons to capture. Joey Waves / Courtesy Photo

Pythons on the move

Python hunters, surveyors, land managers and researchers are never lacking for good stories, but it’s no tall tale when they tell you that the mammoth snakes are running out of food in the eastern Everglades environment and are moving north and west.

“We believe it is true that they have decimated their prey base in Miami- Dade County,” said Michael Kirkland, python program manager for the South Florida Water Management District. “That’s why we have expanded from Dade County into Broward, Palm Beach and Collier counties.”

The shift in python population is “part of the reason we do this,” said Mr. Roepstorff. “Living on Sanibel, those things are moving that way, there’s no doubt. They are definitely established in Collier County and are headed to Lee County.”

“There have been pythons caught in (Lee and Charlotte) counties,” said Mr. Kirkland. “But we don’t know if there are established populations there. It could be just escaped pets.”

Geoff Roepstorff with a prize catch — an image Rep. Francis Rooney later used in his. congressional presentation.

Geoff Roepstorff with a prize catch — an image Rep. Francis Rooney later used in his. congressional presentation.

“Big Cypress National Preserve is a hydrologic resource, so it makes sense that they’ve adapted to this habitat,” said Ardianna McLane, chief of interpretation and education at 720,000-acre Big Cypress, which is conducting telemetry tagging research on the creature. “They are getting closer and closer to Naples.”

The ScienceDaily.com site reported in February 2008: “Burmese pythons — an invasive species in south Florida — could find comfortable climatic conditions in roughly a third of the United States according to new ‘climate maps’ developed by the U.S. Geological Survey.”

The hunt is on

Hunters first began removing pythons from the habitat in 2013, when the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission issued its first Python Challenge. Mr. Crum, an orchid grower with a retail operation in Venice, participated. It took him seven days to find and capture his first python, he said. After camping in the Everglades for 30 days, he won second place in the contest, which removed only 68 pythons at the hands of more than 1,500 hunters.

COURTESY PHOTO

COURTESY PHOTO

FWC issued another challenge in 2016. By then, “Wildman” and other hunters had improved their skills. Mr. Crum and his team brought in 33 snakes in 28 days to win the grand prize of $5,000. That team also brought in the longest snake — a 15-footer — for $3,000 cash.

The Roepstorffs had their first taste of python hunting during that second challenge. They captured their first snake on the last day, Valentine’s Day.

“We walked in six miles and saw it what they call ‘porpoising’ in the sawgrass, with its head up,” said Mr. Roepstorff. “We had no clue what we were doing.”

“Our adrenaline was going 100 miles an hour,” said Ms. Roepstorff. “We really got hooked on it. Once you’ve removed one, you really get into it, because of all the sad things they’re doing to the environment. You really can’t explain how good you feel.”

Geoff and Robbie Roestorff in their bank holding a skin from a 10-foot snake they captured on their 25th anniversary. They’ve sent skins to Texas to be made into boots, but otherwise give them to a hunter friend who makes bracelets and other items from them. GEOFF AND ROBBIE ROEPSTORFF / COURTESY

Geoff and Robbie Roestorff in their bank holding a skin from a 10-foot snake they captured on their 25th anniversary. They’ve sent skins to Texas to be made into boots, but otherwise give them to a hunter friend who makes bracelets and other items from them. GEOFF AND ROBBIE ROEPSTORFF / COURTESY

Since the challenges, the SFWMD and FWC have formalized python elimination programs, hiring about 25 contractors each to remove the reptiles. Since Big Cypress and Everglades national lands have come on board, they also employ volunteers and contractors in their removal programs.

“We were able to pick the best hunters from the state — winners from the challenges, volunteers,” said Mr. Kirkland. “We just assembled a great team of hunters to work with — a perfect storm of talent that has made it the success that it is.”

Out of a thousand applicants, Mr. Crum and the Roepstorffs were selected. They have become the faces of the program, in very different ways.

“They’re a colorful bunch, and they’re doing some very important work,” said Mr. Kirkland, who helped develop the SFWMD’s removal program.

“Wildman,” whose long hair and bravado certainly fit the name, has appeared in a number of television spots, including on the “Today Show” in late 2017 and “Swamp Mysteries” on the History Channel on June 7. Currently, the 38-year-old is working a deal with the Discovery Channel for a show in the Everglades about invasive species. The exposure brings much-needed awareness to the situation.

A python devours a small gazelle. They’ve been known to eat much larger subjects including gators. COURTESY PHOTO

A python devours a small gazelle. They’ve been known to eat much larger subjects including gators. COURTESY PHOTO

The Roepstorffs, on the other hand, are bankers by day and python hunters by night. In fact, those were nearly the exact words that U.S. Florida Rep. Francis Rooney used when he recently pled the case before Congress to launch a removal program, in partnership with the FWC, in Everglades National Park.

Rep. Rooney pointed to a picture of Mr. Roepstorff holding a captured python during his congressional presentation. The landmark legislation passed in May 2018. So now, the Roepstorffs, owners of the independent Edison National Bank in Fort Myers and the Bank of the Islands on Sanibel and Captiva, also “survey” the park.

Screen grabs of Dusty “Wildman” Crum catching a Burmese python in videos you can find online. COURTESY PHOTO

Screen grabs of Dusty “Wildman” Crum catching a Burmese python in videos you can find online. COURTESY PHOTO

“Training involved seminars,” said Mr. Roepstorff. “They educate (contractors) very well that we don’t ‘hunt’ in the park, we ‘remove.’” Like Big Cypress National Preserve, the FWC and SFWMD, every agency has its own set of guidelines and regulations.

“For each group I’m in, I have a binder of rules,” he said. “Each is different. But it’s a privilege to be selected.”

The research is on

The two federal lands abide by missions to study pythons to best determine how to manage the booming populations. Native to South Asia, the snakes ended up in Florida as a result of pet releases and Hurricane Andrew damage to a private reptile-breeding facility in 1992.

“They’re actually a pretty gentle snake,” said Ranger McLane. “They make good pets (but are now not legal). We want to foster respect for invasive species so people won’t release them. And we want to support the science.”

“I respect the snake,” said Mr. Crum. “We don’t like to kill the snakes. It’s a bittersweet moment at the end of the hunt. We all have in common a passion for the environment and a respect for snakes.”

SOURCE: SOUTH FLORIDA WATER MANAGEMENT DISTRICT FLORIDA WEEKLY

SOURCE: SOUTH FLORIDA WATER MANAGEMENT DISTRICT FLORIDA WEEKLY

Snakes captured at Big Cypress must be X-rayed to make sure they aren’t one of the preserve’s seven tagged and tracked snakes. Other current python studies include the Conservancy of Southwest Florida’s sentinel snake program, which successfully broke up what media called “a sex party” of seven males and one female in a gopher tortoise burrow in April; and a pheromones project by the U.S. Geological Study that changes the gender of male pythons to female.

“The hunting program has been the best and cheapest way (of controlling the population),” said Mr. Roepstorff, who hunts with his wife and other hunting partners about three times a month. They honed their skills by hunting with Leo Sanchez, whom they’ve dubbed “The Python King,” and later training with Irula tribesmen from India, whom the FWC and University of Florida brought in to teach hunters how to track pythons.

Dusty “Wildman” Crum and his team with Burmese pythons they caught. COURTESY PHOTO

Dusty “Wildman” Crum and his team with Burmese pythons they caught. Joey Waves / Courtesy Photo

“It felt like we were with National Geographic,” said Ms. Roepstorff. “They have this ritual and prayer they say before they go out.”

“We used to run from snakes,” said Mr. Roepstorff. “It took a while to learn to run to them.”

“Our program, as I like to describe it, is one tool in a large tool box,” said Mr. Kirkland. “It does not replace the science. So far the most effective means of both detecting and removing are human detection, but we continue to use an integrated approach to really battle this issue. Hunting is more cost-effective, but it’s important to follow the science and continue the science until we come up with a better strategy.”

Lifestyles of hunted and hunters

The pythons in the Everglades average 8 to 10 feet in length and 16 pounds. The longest python captured by the SFWMD team measured a little over 17 feet; the heaviest weighed 140 pounds.

Pythons on their way to a necropsy station. COURTESY PHOTO

Pythons on their way to a necropsy station. Joey Waves / Courtesy Photo

In the summer, the elusive snakes are easier to find at night. When it’s cool outside, they will come out of their holes to warm in the sun. They are good climbers — a tactic they use in ambush hunting. But the well-camouflaged pythons spend a lot of time in their holes, because they don’t need to feed often. When they do feed, they require heat to digest the food. When females are nesting, they can spend up two to three months wrapped around the 30 to 100 eggs they lay. As the pythons’ food source diminishes, they move on, mostly by swimming.

“We used to find birds, ducks, deer, rabbits, otters and raccoons,” said Mr. Crum, who largely captures snakes in the eastern Everglades. “Where I’ve been hunting, there are none of these animals left.” Everglades National Park reports a study that shows nearly complete decimation of marsh rabbits, a 99 percent decline in raccoons, 98 percent decline in opossums and 87 percent in bobcats — “likely attributable to pythons.”

“If we see a raccoon, we take a picture of it,” Mr. Roepstorff reiterates the devastating effect the non-venomous constrictors are having on native wildlife. “Francis Rooney likes to say, ‘It’s so important to focus on water quality, but what are we protecting it for if all the wildlife is gone?’ ”

Although there are no reports of human fatality in Florida due to pythons, their impact could affect human health because the mosquitoes so rampant in the Everglades no longer have all the mammals to feed upon, said Mr. Crum. “It used to be mosquitoes fed 85 percent on mammals and 15 percent on rats. Now that has flip-flopped.”

Estimates of python populations range up to 100,000 “best guess.” To date, the SWFWMD removal program has eliminated more than 1,090, which doesn’t include FWC contractor numbers (about 120 since the program’s inception) and removal through other FWC programs and by farmers and other locals who are killing them on private property.

“We’re just trying to put them in the bag one at a time and get rid of the population,” said Mr. Crum, who hunts — usually barefoot — five days a week and catches an average of five snakes per week. He ultimately turns the pythons he skins into wallets, belt buckles and other products to sell. In addition, hunters receive an hourly fee ($8.25 for up to 10 hours a day from the SWFWMD) and typically a $50 bounty for a snake up to 4 feet long and $25 for each foot over 4 feet.

“The challenge is the frustration of when you go hunting and they’re not out,” said Mr. Roepstorff. “You’ve got to realize that you’re NOT going to catch more than you DO catch. The average hunter on our team estimates it takes over 40 (hunter) hours to get one python. But patrolling in itself is wonderful.”

“It’s just beautiful going out there,” said Ms. Roepstorff. “It’s a real relief and real calming. Both our mothers loved wildlife and loved nature, and that’s why we dedicate these hunts to their memory.”

The Roepstorffs’ biggest catch was a 12-footer, but they remember better the 10-foot snake they captured on a hunt with Ms. Roepstorff’s sister from Alabama. “That was our 25th anniversary catch,” said Ms. Roepstorff. “We love it! If we lived there, we’d go every night we could.”

What you can do

>> Avoid keeping exotic, invasive animals as pets. The Burmese python is now classified a “conditional reptile,” which makes it illegal to acquire as a pet.

>> Take advantage of FWC’s Pet Amnesty Days to, without consequence, turn in snakes and other injurious species brought in or bought illegally.

>> Download the IveGot1 app to report sightings of invasive species, report online at IveGot1.org, or call the Exotic Species Hotline at 800-IVEGOT1 (800-483-4681).

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