Tallahassee, Florida (AP)-- We recently shared a story touching on how the python situation in Florida is so bad that officials are considering supplying the public with cooking recipes.
One of the other efforts Florida officials were employing was the use of python-sniffing dogs.
Last week, Truman, a black Labrador retriever, tracked down his first snake.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission recently began training to sniff out the snakes and alert the handlers. The first success was last week when Truman found a eight-foot Burmese python in the Rocky Glades Public Small Game Hunting Area in Miami-Dade County.
According to AP, Eric Sutton, the commission’s executive director, stated, “We’ve got to stay innovative. We’ve got to try new approaches and the detector dog is just one area where we’re doing that.”
There are an estimated 100,000 to 300,000 pythons in the Florida Everglades. This large amount of invasive species is causing havoc on the native species.
The dogs are trained by using python-scented towels. They know when they come across the snake to stay about three feet away.
Related:
The situation in the Everglades is so bad officials might hand out Burmese python recipes
10 foot python removed from under car hood in Florida
Story via Brenda Farrington with AP