Black Labrador trained to hunt python in Florida has succeeded in finding his first snake in the wild.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission trained dogs to track the prying snakes. Their first successful trainees are Truman, the black Labrador, and Eleanor, a Point Setter dog.
The two dogs are tasked to alert their handlers when they sniff a hint of the python’s scent. When put to action, it only took a week for Truman to hunt an 8-foot Burmese python. The dog found it in Rocky Glades Public Small Game Hunting Area in Miami-Dade County.
According to the commission’s executive director, Eric Sutton, they need to innovate and create new approaches to capture the invasive snakes in their area. As a result, they thought of dog-sniffing pythons to combat it.
The conservation used towels with python’s scent and live snakes with trackers on them. The handlers taught Truman and Eleanor to stay 3 feet away from the snakes because it would hurt them. Pythons are known to eat small alligators and deers around the area.
Additionally, the organization taught the dogs to ignore distractions such as other live animals. When they hunt five days a week, Truman is with Floridan biologists, so they are the ones catching the snakes.
They were so proud of their achievement, Sutton stated in a conference with the other commissioners of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation. He also relays to them how hardworking and dedicated the dogs were to the jobs.
After only training for a month, Sutton is confident that the canines will find more snakes destroying the balance of Florida’s wildlife. The Florida Everglades ecosystem has been suffering from imbalance because of the snakes.
Around 100,000 – 300,000 pythons are eating birds and mammals and this is wrecking the natural flow of the system. Having no predators, the pythons are reproducing rapidly.
Source: Geo Beats via YouTube
