So much for all the efforts to slow the proliferation of Burmese pythons in the Florida Everglades over the last two decades, including with paid contractors, trained volunteers and an annual hunt that has drawn participants from as far as Latvia: The giant snakes have been making their way north, reaching West Palm Beach and Fort Myers and threatening ever-larger stretches of the ecosystem.

That was one of the few definitive conclusions in a comprehensive review of python science published last month by the U.S. Geological Survey, which underscored the difficulty of containing the giant snakes since they were first documented as an established population in the state in 2000.

[We talk about this every once in a while here – I think our freezes and occasional frozen precipitation will keep them out of NoFL, but who know? Hubs says the only way to get rid of them at an exponential rate if put a bounty on the slithery suckers. ~ Beege]