Invasive Species

Florida is under attack. Its natural flora and fauna are being devastated without any foreseen natural defense.  Snakes, lizards, exotic fish, stubborn tropical plants, and feral hogs are all taking their toll on Florida’s fragile ecosystem.  There are two shows that I have recently seen that demonstrate how bad this problem is Python Hunters on Nat Geo Wild and Hogs Gone Wild which airs on the Discovery Channel, both of these shows are in existence because of the extent of how many invasive species there are in Florida.

The Python Hunters is about three men running around the Florida Everglades trying to find and remove exotic reptiles such as iguanas, monitor lizards, and big pythons. However these guys are not just some bums that decided to go save the everglades on a whim; they are well trained and very seasoned reptile handlers. Shawn Heflick is a herpetologist from Palm Bay, police officer Greg Graziani is from Venus, and Mike Coleis and python breeder from Haines City, as the Orlando Sentinel’s Hal Boedeker describes them,  together these three crusaders make up the python hunters. The last episode I watched the hunters were out trying to catch iguanas and monitor lizards with only a net while highly entertaining it proved to be very ineffective. The group saw many targets but only was able to catch one monitor lizard the whole episode.

Bryan Swanson, a wildlife biologist and founder of Allstar Animal Removal, Tim Smith, a seasoned hog hunter and employee of Allstar animal Removal, and Ryan Killoran, also a wildlife biologist, make up the Florida portion of Hogs Gone Wild. These men travel all over the state helping people remove feral hogs from their property. Many of the hogs they have captured have been close to urban areas.  They have even caught hogs on a school’s soccer field.  They mainly use dogs to capture the hogs because discharging a gun is illegal so close to such residential areas.

Now after watching these two shows I began to wonder, if we have such an invasive species problem in Florida why can’t sportsman hunt on state land year-round? While I agree with hunting seasons for game animals such as deer and turkey, I disagree with not allowing hunters on that land throughout the year. This to me seems like a viable solution to the problem. Allow hunters who like hunt, like to be in the woods, like to continue to hone their craft, and most of all pay for the privilege to go hunting to chase after these invasive species all year. If history has shown anything its unregulated hunting can wipe out the population of a species. We nearly did it to the buffalo and almost every other game bird and animal that we targeted at the turn of the 20^th century. So I don’t see a problem with allowing hunters on public state land that is already used for hunting to be open all year for the eradication of these intrusive species.