Wow, this has really become an ecological disaster:

In areas where the pythons have established themselves, marsh rabbits and foxes can no longer be found. Sightings of raccoons are down 99.3%, opossums 98.9% and white-tailed deer 94.1%, according to a paper out Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“What if the stock market had declined that much? Think of the adjectives you’d use for that,” says Gordon Rodda, an invasive-species specialist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) who published research in 2008 showing that Burmese pythons could conceivably expand across the southern portion of the United States.

“Pythons are wreaking havoc on one of America’s most beautiful, treasured and naturally bountiful ecosystems,” says USGS Director Marcia McNutt.

I remember when we drove down to Flamingo, on Florida Bay, the only place in the world (I think) where alligators and crocodiles coexist, and seeing a family of raccoons on a hike.

At least they’re not endangered species. If they can figure out some way to exterminate the snakes, they could be repopulated in the Everglades from other regions. I suspect that the solution may be some kind of engineered tasty poison that only affects Burmese pythons, but we probably aren’t that far along in the tech yet.