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Florida officials are testing a new method that involves a robotic bunny to remove unwanted invasive Burmese pythons from the Everglades
The robotic rabbits are made to look, sound, and even smell like a brown Everglades marsh rabbit
Officials estimate that pythons have killed 95% of small mammals, as well as thousands of birds, in Florida’s Everglades National Park
Following its annual challenge that allows hunters to kill thousands of invasive pythons, Florida officials are now testing a new method to remove the unwanted snakes — and it involves a robotic bunny.
A new report from the Associated Press details how the South Florida Water Management District is testing a robotic bunny program to eliminate as many invasive Burmese pythons as possible from the Everglades, aiming to curb the species’ destruction of native wildlife. Officials estimate that pythons have killed 95% of small mammals, as well as thousands of birds, in Florida’s Everglades National Park.
According to the Water Management District, finding these semiaquatic snakes is the most challenging part of the process — and that’s where the robotic bunnies come in.
“Removing them is fairly simple. It’s detection. We’re having a really hard time finding them,” Mike Kirkland, lead invasive animal biologist for the Water Management District, told AP. “They’re so well camouflaged in the field.”
South Florida Water Management District via AP
These robotic rabbits produce a heat signature and emit a smell designed to attract pythons.
This summer, researchers from the Water Management District and the University of Florida tested 120 robotic rabbits, designed to resemble, sound, and even smell like a brown Everglades marsh rabbit, to assess their effectiveness in attracting pythons. Kirkland noted that researchers had previously attempted to use live rabbits to lure the pythons out of their hiding spots, but this approach was costly and time-consuming.
According to Kirkland, these $4,000 robots (financed by the Water District) are toy bunnies that are retrofitted to emit heat, smell, and move. They are solar powered, so researchers can turn them on and off as needed, and are placed in pens monitored by a camera. When the camera detects a python attracted to the robotic bunny, a person is dispatched to capture the curious snake.
“Then I can deploy one of our many contractors to go out and remove the python,” Kirkland said of the process.
Although researchers are still in the early stages of experimentation with the rabbit project, officials believe the results thus far are a cause for celebration.
“This part of the project is in its infancy,” Kirkland added to AP. “We are confident, though, that this will work once we are given enough time to work out some of these details.”
Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty
Burmese pythons are believed to have arrived in South Florida as pets in the 1980s.
According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), Burmese pythons are not native to Florida but have established a large population over the years, likely due to pythons from the exotic pet trade escaping or being released into the state. Female pythons can lay as many as 100 eggs at a time, and in the Florida wilderness, these snakes have no natural predators, allowing them to spread quickly and endanger many native mammals and birds.
This new snake elimination project comes just a month after the end of the annual Florida Python Challenge, in which hunters from across the country are given the chance to win a $10,000 Ultimate Grand Prize for removing the most invasive Burmese pythons from the Florida Everglades during a 10-day hunt.
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To take part in the challenge, participants were required to pass an online training, as per the event’s website, and had to kill the pythons humanely. The challenge did not permit the use of firearms, dogs, or other animals.
According to the FWC, 934 participants from 30 states and Canada took part in the challenge this year. The grand-prize winner of this year’s challenge was Taylor Stanberry. According to her Instagram, she’s a “venomous keeper” and “relocator” who has already been dubbed the “new queen of the Everglades.”
According to CBS News, since 2000, over 23,000 pythons have been captured and removed from the Everglades.
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