Author and columnist Shelly Reuben

Let me tell you about Florida, the Everglades, and snakes. Specifically: Burmese pythons.

I came upon this information inadvertently, when a documentary I did not intend to watch captured my attention before I had the time to look for an old Barbara Stanwyck movie on TV. After that first glimpse into the catastrophe resulting from the invasion of these long, limbless, reptiles (they have no eyelids. Ugh.), I became indefatigably curious about the whys, wherefores, and what-ifs.

First, I’ll give you a brief overview of Florida’s Everglades National Park. It was established in 1947 and is administered by the National Parks Service. It takes up 1.5 million acres of sub-tropical wetland; which includes cypress swamps, mangrove forests, and rocky pinelands. To give you a sense of its size, 1 million acres would be about two and a half times as big as London. More familiarly, it is larger than all five boroughs of New York City, which is only 193,664 acres.

So, we aren’t talking Olympic-size swimming pool here. We are talking VAST.

The Everglades was the first national park created specifically to safeguard wildlife, as opposed to – as with other national parks – preserve remote and beautiful geological landscapes.

Speaking of Mother Nature, the Everglades is / was home to an immense population of her children: 350 bird species, 50 reptiles, and 40 mammals, including (this just is a small sampling): panthers, black bears, white-tailed deer, raccoons, foxes, marsh rabbits, bobcats, opossums, armadillos, squirrels, weasels, wild pigs, West Indian manatees, Atlantic bottlenose dolphins, short-finned whales, otters, egrets, herons, ibises, flamingos, storks, and bald eagles. It is the only place in the world where crocodiles and alligators live (sort of) side-by-side. It is also home to loggerhead turtles, softshell turtles, snapping turtles, crabs, crawfish, Florida cottonmouth snakes, Eastern diamondback rattlers, banded southern water snakes, little green frogs, oak toads, pig frogs, green tree frogs, and on and on and on.

So, why am I telling you this? Particularly if, like me, you aren’t much interested in flora and fauna unless it is a lilac bush growing outside your bedroom window or a loveable mutt with its nose resting on your knee.

Well. Because. Of. The. Burmese. Python.

A truly despicable invasive species

Now, I will speedwalk you through the rest of this subject, because it depresses me.

In 1992, Hurricane Andrew, a category five storm, raged through Southern Florida with winds gusting over 175 miles per hour. The sea level rose 17-feet, and there were over 10-inches of rain. Andrew destroyed around 125,000 homes, killed 23 people, and cost the state more than $25 billion in damage to housing, transportation infrastructures, power grids, tourism, business, industry, and agriculture, particularly in citrus groves and vegetable farms.

In south Dade County, among the buildings destroyed by Andrew, was a reptile breeding facility. In the aftermath of the storm, it was discovered that hundreds of Burmese pythons had escaped. None were re-captured, and most made their way to the Everglades.

But between 1970 and 1995, even before Hurricane Andrew, many Floridians, hankering for the exotic, imported about 17,000 Burmese pythons.

As pets!

These ophiophilists (that means snake-lovers) found their intricately patterned and colorful markings both intriguing and beautiful. At least, until they grew to a monstrous size: 15 to 20 feet long and up to 200 pounds. Then, the blithering idiots who had bought them lugged them to the Florida Everglades and dumped them into the swamp.

Now, a quick look at the destruction wrought by the invasion of these insatiable reptiles. Please keep in mind that innocuous terms like “severe declines” mean that the pythons tracked down, strangled, and ATE the members of the species being mentioned:

Quoting from the USGS Geological Service website, dated September 10, 2025: “Severe declines in mammal populations throughout Everglades National Park have been linked to Burmese pythons (in areas) … where (they) have been established the longest. A 2012 study found that populations of raccoons had declined 99.3 percent, opossums 98.9 percent, and bobcats 87.5 percent since 1997. Marsh rabbits, cottontail rabbits, and foxes effectively disappeared over that time.”

Which brings us to the concept of an apex predator.

The BioExpedition Website tells us: “Sometimes referred to as a superpredator or top predator, an apex predator is any animal at the top of a food chain and lacks natural predators of its own … apex predators have the following features ▪ They have exceptional hunting skills ▪ They are incredibly large, giving them a physical advantage over their prey ▪ They claim large territories to facilitate their constant need for food ▪ They have significant ecological importance as they can control prey populations.”

Why am I telling you all this?

So that you will understand two things.

One, that even though Burmese pythons are apex predators, they are not relevant to Archie the Giant Chickadee or his friends. Per se. I mention them here only to enlighten you about how monumentally devastating an apex predator -- any apex predator – can be, and what it can do.

And two, to alert you that they come in all sizes and shapes, and when unchecked in a new environment, they give a new and terrifying meaning to the concept of “easy prey.”

And that IS relevant to Archie the Giant Chickadee and his friends.

Copyright © Shelly Reuben, 2026. Shelly Reuben’s books have been nominated for Edgar, Prometheus, and Falcon awards. For more about her writing, visit www.shellyreuben.com