The four of them had paid $25 each and signed up to hunt Burmese pythons in the Florida Everglades. They were going for a prize of $1,500 for the most pythons caught and another $1,000 for the longest snake, which could easily be more than 15 feet.  More than 800 others, including at least 60 women,  had entered the month-long competition, the 2013 Python Challenge.  Many had gathered on a near-perfect, sunny January day at a University of Florida research center here, inland from Fort Lauderdale,  for briefings on Burmese python behavior and the do’s and don’t’s of the contest, organized by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

The Burmese pythons could be a disaster in the making. Florida wildlife authorities and university researchers have some evidence to suggest that they have wiped out a lot of small animals in the Everglades like rabbits, opossums, raccoons and wading birds. And they worry that the snakes, originally from Southeast Asia, are breeding at a fast pace and could end up radically changing the animal makeup of the vast wetland.

Trying For A Head Count

The experts say they’re guessing that there are thousands of pythons out there.  But the snakes are hard to find and no one knows for sure.   That is one reason the Florida wildlife commission, a state agency that manages wildlife resources and enforces wildlife regulations, decided to unleash the hunters. “This is an opportunity to learn a lot about these animals,” said Ken Wright, an Orlando lawyer and the chairman of the seven-member appointed wildlife commission.

Another reason for the hunt is to simply kill as many pythons as possible.  They are among more than 130 kinds of lizards, turtles, toads, frogs and other snakes that have been brought into Florida over the years from other countries and that threaten to upset the natural balance. Many pythons and other so-called invasive species were pets,  the authorities say, and were simply let loose in the Everglades after they were no longer wanted.

How many pythons the hunters may scare up is a big question mark. The pythons come in mottled shades of green and tan and brown and they blend in perfectly with the green and brown saw grass, cat tails and bushes of the Everglades.  The authorities have tried tracking them with dogs, radio transmitters and heat sensors from aircraft.  Nothing has worked very well.

Larry Perez, a National Park Service ranger and the author of the book, “Snake in the grass: An Everglades Invasion,”  said that experienced hunters and trappers were given three months to search for Burmese pythons in 2009 and came back with 39 of them.  In a hunt a year later, he said, not a single python was taken.

In 10 Years, One Sighting

One investigator for the Florida wildlife commission, David Bingham, said that in 10 years of patrolling the Everglades he had caught sight of one Burmese python.  “It’s not like the manatees,” Officer Bingham said. “They’re pretty easy to count. You just jump in a helicopter and you know you can get a close count. The panther is another animal we regulate and count.” But the Burmese python, he said, “is such an elusive animal that it’s just impossible to know how many are out there.”

Burmese pythons are constrictor snakes. They do not inject venom in their victims. Instead, they snatch hold of them with four rows of backward slanting teeth, then coil around them and squeeze the life out of them. Next the snakes swallow their prey whole. In one notorious case, a Burmese python split itself open when it tried to swallow an alligator.

Some of the python hunters in the 2013 Python Challenge had never hunted or even been in the vast, swampy Everglades. Some were more like Indiana Jones. Wierzbicki, a carpenter with a carefully cultivated white handlebar moustache who grew up not far from Chicago, said he had hunted grizzly bears in Alaska and killed rattle snakes in New Mexico and Utah with the crack of a bull whip.   Matthews, a roofer and animal rescuer from Bradenton, on Florida’s west coast, said he was also a falconer and had trained a Harris hawk to help him find pythons. Matthews said he would be hunting with his brother, Eric, 48, a mechanic, and his brother-in-law, Roy Suggs, 50, who owns a paving company that builds parking lots.

Two Boys And A Dad 

The two boys in the reflecting sunglasses, Jimmy Harper and Coby Pawlowski, both 17 and both from Fort Myers on the Florida west coast, were among the youngest in the Python Challenge. They were going into the Everglades with Coby’s dad, Bob Pawlowski, the manager of a swimming pool maintenance company.  The older man said they were arming themselves with a shotgun, a .22 rifle, three machetes, two four-foot-long fishing gaffs for probing crevices and bushes, a pint of rubbing alcohol and a spinning rod with a multi-pronged snatch hook

The fishing rod and snatch hook, he said, were for use if a python tried to get away in a pond or canal. “You’d cast in the water and try to get him back that way, by snatching him,” The elder Pawowski said.    Pawlowski, who had yet to see a python in the wild, said the rubbing alcohol was in case a python wrapped around him or one of the boys:  “You can pour it in his mouth and a lot of times that will shock him enough that he’ll let go.”

The boys were wise guys and they talked and acted as if they had been together since infancy – which they had not. “Our advantage,” said Harper, “is that we’re a whole lot faster than those older guys.”  His partner chimed it: “And we can see; we don’t need bifocals.”

For Fritz Van Zwol, 68, the Python Challenge was a totally new experience. Van Zwol, a retired marine engineer from Fort Lauderdale, said he and his son, Robert, 28, had come out on the first day “to learn about snakes and all about the Everglades” and to learn “whatever you need to kill snakes.”

Great Idea Or Something Crazy

Reaction to the Python Challenge has been mixed.  “Some people think this is a great idea,” said Nick Wiley, the executive director of the Florida wildlife commission. “And some people think it’s crazy.”

There was the possibility, of course, that somebody would get hurt.  “I think there’s a high potential,” said Stuart L. Pimm, an expert on the Everglades at Duke University.  “I’m wary of the safety issues.”

Matthews, who got into trouble three years ago for faking the capture of a Burmese python as a publicity stunt, said he was most concerned about the other hunters. “I don’t want to get shot,” he said.

The kickoff of the 2013 Python Challenge was like a miniature county fair. There were speeches and exhibits and nods to members of the state and federal legislatures.  People from the University of Florida and the wildlife commission talked about the importance of ridding the Everglades of invasive species – of which the Burmese python was Exhibit A.   Rafael Crespo, 29, and Seth Farris, 24, two University of FLorida wildlife specialists in bright orange T-shirts, showed off the bleached skulls of a crocodile and an alligator and two of the principal vehicles of the Everglades, an airboat that can skim across wet grass and a shallow-running skiff with a 40-horsepower Yamaha outboard motor.  Volunteers were selling Python Challenge T-shirts and caps and bumper stickers.

On an open patch of lawn, people crowded three and four deep in a circle around Captain Jeff Fobb, a snake wrangler from the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Department unit, Venom One.  Fobb, in a billowing gray fishing shirt, was demonstrating how to how to sneak up on a python and grab it just below the head.  Nearby, under a white canvas canopy, another Venom One officer, Lieutenant Lisa Wood, showed life-like replicas of eastern diamondback rattlers, cottonmouth moccasins and other poisonous snakes that the hunters might come across as they were chasing pythons.

Video by WKLG Inc. Productions

Inside a small, cream-colored house that the university built to demonstrate construction methods and fittings that can withstand hurricane winds, chefs from the Lincoln Culinary Institute in West Palm Beach filled little paper cups with samples of gourmet dishes created from invasive critters:  a green iguana stew, tacos with white flaky slices of Southeast Asian snake fish and a white bean soup laced with the meat of a small, Latin American crocodile.

In one of the briefings, Wildlife Officer David Bingham, in khaki and olive uniform, told the hunters they could search the Everglades day and night, but that they could not use spotlights to stun Burmese pythons.  As for weapons, Officer Bingham said, shotguns, pistols, knives and crossbows were fine, but no rifles more powerful than a .22.  A hand went up in the audience and Officer Bingham said, yes, anyone who wanted to try hunting in the Everglades on a bicycle was welcome to do so. He cautioned the hunters to avoid any outrageous behavior that could embarrass them or the organizers of the hunt. “You will be disqualified,” he said, “for posting photos or videos of inhumane or illegal activity on social media.”

What They Are Eating

Hunters are required to kill their pythons on the spot, take down the geographic coordinates with the help of a GPS device and get their snakes to wildlife officials within 24 hours for a necropsy – the term for an autopsy of snakes and other animals. The researchers want to see what the snakes have been eating and whether, as suspected, many have dangerous concentrations of mercury. They want to look at their genetics to try to distinguish between newcomers and snakes that have been in the Everglades for years. And they want to learn more about their reproduction in hopes of figuring out a defense against the snakes’ multiplying like mad. The female snakes often produce more than 30 eggs.

In the last 13 years, the authorities say, about 2,000 pythons have been captured in the Everglades. Most have been killed and the contents of the stomachs of 469 have been examined, said Frank Mazzotti, a wildlife ecologist and expert on the Everglades at the University of Florida.

Talking about the case against the pythons as environmental marauders, Mazzotti said:  “I liken this to a grand jury.”  There is enough evidence to indict the pythons, he said, but not yet enough to convict. Something else, he said, could turn out to be responsible for a decline in small game in the Everglades.

Mazzotti said that besides possibly helping to build a stronger case against the pythons as destroyers of small game, the hunt may provide information on the efficiency of different hunting methods and perhaps give some indication of whether this kind of event raises public awareness about the harm of Burmese pythons and other invasive species – as hoped – or that all the commotion ends up glorifying the creatures – which, he said, “we don’t want to happen.”

Potential For Collateral Damage

The organizers said they had heard concerns that snakes and animals that are native to the Everglades could become collateral damage in the hunt. There were concerns, too, that the hunters might toy with and torment the pythons instead of dispatching them swiftly and, as the organizers say, humanely.

“We’re going into this with our eyes wide open,” Mazzotti said. “We may not do it again. But we looked at the negatives and none of them rose to the level of being reason why we shouldn’t try it.”

The 2013 Python Challenge opened with the January temperature hovering at about 80 degrees Fahrenheit and puffy white clouds riding in a pale sky.  Cooler weather would be better for the hunt, said Ron Bergeron, one of the fish and wildlife commissioners and the owner of a big construction and real estate company. “If we get some cold weather these snakes will come up,” he said. “They don’t like cold water and they will come up on high ground.”

Florida sometimes refers to itself as the Sunshine State. Tom Mooney, 47 and the owner of an advertising business in Naples, Fla., was wearing a T-shirt with the words: “Welcome to the Gunshine State” and a stylized map of Florida that looked like a semi-automatic pistol.

Out On The Tamiami Trail

He said he had already captured one Burmese python. It was a little more than a year ago.  He had been driving along the Tamiami Trail, the main southern route through the Everglades from Miami to Naples, and seen the snake curled up along a shoulder of the road.  Mooney said he and a man on a Harley Davidson pulled over. “I grabbed it by the tail,” Mooney said, “and he jumped on its head.”

For some of the hunters, the Python Challenge was a lark.  “We just want to get out and have some fun,” said Coby Pawlowski, one of the two teenagers. His friend, Jimmy Harper, said: “It’s more for the challenge than anything else.”

Mooney and some of the other grown-ups talked about loftier motives.   Bergeron, the fish and wildlife commissioner, said he saw the event as “an environmental hunt where the public can participate in saving one of the great natural resources of the world,” – the Everglades.

A Son of Pioneers

Rodney Irwin, 59, was in perfect harmony with Bergeron.  Irwin, who makes part of his living renting out alligators to draw crowds at trade shows, was walking around with a 14-inch-long light green, yellow and turquoise chameleon perched on the shoulder of his white, quick-dry fishing shirt. It was a veiled chameleon, usually found in Yemen or Madagascar. But Irwin said he caught his chameleon in a clump of woods near the town of Homestead, south of Miami, toward the Florida Keys and 10 minutes from his house. In his red Ford pickup truck, Irwin had a black and white Argentine tagu, a kind of lizard, which he caught in the same place.

Irwin has worked as a demolitions specialist, boat captain and farm manager. But he now spends a lot of his time hunting and trapping. He says he killed four pythons last year and caught about 300 tagu lizards that he sold to wholesale pet shop dealers for $50 apiece.

For Irwin, the python hunt was a special mission.  His forebears, he said, had settled in the Everglades more than 100 years ago.  He was bothered, he said, by “these new invasive predators”  that were threatening the place.  And he said he felt what he called “an incumbent responsibility” to do what he could so that “the wildlife I grew up with, and that my father and my grandfather grew up with, will not be consumed by pythons and other constrictors and non-native predators.” #

The Biltmore, a landmark, Mediterranean Revival style tower that opened in 1925,  hosted precinct 427, one of hundreds of polling places in Miami-Dade County. From the street, drivers could see swarms of people  on the hotel’s front lawn, some walking toward the entrance carrying registration cards and driver’s licenses.  Others walking out wearing “I voted today!” stickers.

“I will wear this sticker all day to show my country I fulfilled my duty,” said Rodriguez’s wife, Barbara. “Voting is how I give back to a country that has given me everything.”

The Rodriguezes were born in Miami and are first generation Cuban-Americans, like many others in Miami-Dade County. Hector Rodriguez said he was  looking for work.  His wife said she worked as a hostess in a restaurant. For them, stabilizing the economy was the most important political issue.

Some people were voting for the first time.  One of them was Brendan Dunn, 18 and a theater major at Miami-Dade College.  “It’s a very close election and the future of the country depends on it,” she said.

“I feel like this election has had a lot more hype,” Dunn said. “Seeing how everyone’s been talking about it told me I had to come here today.” She said she will need a job at some point. “Romney says he can give me one,” she said. “So he’s got my vote.”

Uphaus, wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the American flag, came from Peru when he was 16.  He has a degree in political science.  He  said he chose former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney to answer those questions and to use his experience to revive the economy. “If I was looking at two resumes, just the resumes alone, I would choose his resume,” Uphaus said. “Experience matters.”

Although he voted for Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, in the 2008 presidential election, Uphaus said he knew that Obama was going to win, not because he was the better candidate but because he was the better candidate with star power.

“I personally think they made Obama an idol, into a celebrity, into a star. And as consumers in America, we fall for that type of marketing,” said Uphaus.

His sister, who voted for Obama in 2008, switched sides because of the lack of results Obama has shown, Uphaus said.

“I’ve been in the country 33 years and this is the worst I’ve seen it,” he said. “We’re in an emergency.”

Wade, a who grew up in Wellington, was wearing jeans, an over-sized tan T-shirt and a baseball cap.  She danced around and sang Obama’s name in repetition. She had come out to vote, she said,  “to make sure Romney’s butt doesn’t get into office.” But she was in no hurry to cast her vote.  She  stopped to chat with nearly everyone she saw.

“I’m hoping it’s going to be a landslide,” she said.

Taxes were one of her issues, she said.  The rich need to pay up,” she said. “They’ve been getting a break since way back.”

President Obama would help the middle class,  she said.  But Mitt Romney,  she said, cared only about the wealthy.

With another term in office, Wade said, Obama would fix the economy and keep the promises he made to improve the country.  “Why don’t they give him eight years?” she asked. “What’s somebody going to do in four years? That’s not enough time to even get their feet wet.”

The low turn out at the school, in a residential section with lots of homes near The Falls shopping mall, was hard for Padron to reconcile.   “This election, I feel, is one of the most important in my lifetime because the country is at such a turning point,” she said. “I feel that things are pretty dire right now; everyone should feel empowered, whatever party you’re in, to do something.”

Padron is a free lance writer. Her “something” was to support Republican candidates running for local and state offices.  She campaigned at five polling stations  throughout the eight days of early voting.  A member of the Miami Young Republicans, Padron returned on Election Day to complete the job.

The quiet at Leewood Elementary was a  sharp contrast to Padron’s early-voting experience. At several polling places in the voting before Election Day, it  had been pretty hectic. One thing she learned, she said, was that being a campaign worker involved talking to people who did not necessarily want to listen.

On her first day of campaigning at the West Dade Regional Library, some voters rejected the  Republican ballot guide she had handed them, she said.  “People were ripping out the opposition’s signs, throwing them at each other as if they were boomerangs,” Padron said. “They were threatening to hit each other.”

She said one polling place in Coral Gables  was like “a circus.”  People were selling food and water. Republicans and Democrats stood on opposite sides of a corner screaming and threatening each other. She said there was a commotion in the parking lot and two cars banged into each other.

Padron said she participated in early voting this year. She said she was dissatisfied  with how the country had been run the past four years. She said things like 401k’s and investing in the stock market affected her personally.

“This is the change we need, not the last four years,” said Padron, who started the Florida International University’s Republicans Club.

In “this emotionally charged election,” Padron noted that the environment was one of the issues that candidates seemed to have neglected.  And, she said, it deserved attention.  “Let’s face it, if we don’t take care of the environment, we’re not going to have anything to live off or vote for,” Padron said. “I think it is important and I think it would be wise to look into how we can use our resources like oil because it does affect the economy.”

Manzanares, 64, showed up with a green hat and a bottle of water at the North Shore Branch of the Miami-Dade County Library in Miami Beach, where she joined a group of Barack Obama supporters.

“It is not that I want Obama to win; I know he will win,” Manzanares said.  “Let’s get to the point: Who killed Bin Laden? Obama did. Who fixed the economy? Obama did. Who ended the war? Obama did.”

Although she was born in Cuba, Manzanares said she and her family came to the United States when she was a child. She grew up in Ohio, but moved to Miami a few decades ago.

Reluctant to talk about her immigration status, Manzanares said her brother and father, who are both legal citizens, support her.

She said she can relate to Obama’s appeal to the masses, which is driven by his humble background.

“Obama is humane,” Manzanares said. “He comes from a family that is different, like me.”

Manzanares said she was proud to be among the poll volunteers who were campaigning for their causes.  “I suffer from asthma, and today I got up to work for Obama,” Manzanares said.

Mastropole is a University of Miami student conducting the first detailed on-the-ground study of mangroves in the Galapagos. She and the university hope her work is the beginning of a long-term project that could stretch over many years.

Mangroves are clusters of spindly trees and shrubs that form dense, leafy green walls along salt water shorelines in much of the tropics and subtropics. They are breeding grounds for birds, shrimp, and fish. They prevent erosion and filter out pollution. Experts say a third of the world’s mangrove forests have been lost in the past 50 years. Some people use mangroves for firewood.  Historically, developers have chopped down mangroves to clear space for condos and resorts, but in some places, like Florida, it is illegal to damage them.

Mastropole’s work has global implications. Scientists have been debating the impact of global climate change on mangroves. Some scientists say climate change will hurt the mangroves. Others say it could be good for them. “There’s conflicting research,” Mastropole said.

One problem is that much of the world’s mangroves have not been charted.  Mastropole’s work is designed to deal with that.  She is setting out to establish a baseline for calculating the impact of global climate change on at least a small part of the world’s mangroves.

Part of the controversy focuses on increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and gradually rising sea levels – both related to climate change.  Scientists say increased carbon dioxide helps mangroves grow. But they say higher sea levels could drown them.

Mastropole is working closely with Martina Streuben. Both are graduate students at the University of Miami.  Mastropole is focusing on the survey of the mangroves. Streuben is doing a study of fish in the mangroves. In the field, they work as a team.

They work their way through the mangroves on their hands and knees. Vicious thorn bushes often block their path. They guide each other. “Try going left, and under those branches,” Mastropole said to Streuben one morning. And Streuben found a way through.

Mastropole is surveying the three types of Galapagos mangroves –white, black, and red–and determining how far inland each type grows strongest. She is measuring the diameter and height of the mangrove trees and the density of the mangrove forests.

Mastropole said the University of Miami is hoping to get grants to support the long-term study. Some high school students worked with Mastropole and Streuben and the two researchers say they hope there will be more Galapagos participation in the future.  They plan to compare their findings in the Galapagos with their research at the University of Miami’s field station on Broad Key in the upper Florida Keys.

In the Galapagos, Mastropole and Streuben have measured hundreds of mangrove trees.  Their last tree was number 400. After they recorded the data, they were ready to celebrate, “Where’s the champagne?” Streuben said.  Mastropole just smiled. #

Seeing the voters willing to endure long waiting lines put to rest an assumption she had had about American politics. Before she came to the United States, she said,  she thought Americans were not interested in politics. But on Election Day  2012 she saw hundreds of people – even students – eager to cast their votes.

Although she was not eligible to vote, Wang said she found the presidential election process captivating. After watching the three presidential debates, she said,  she hoped her friends would vote for President Obama.  An Obama victory, she said, would mean continued good international relationships with China.

Natalie Lopez, 21, another University of Miami student, said she had paid a lot of attention to the election. She is a biology major but intends to transfer to international relation studies. Both of Lopez’s parents are doctors, which has provided her an opportunity to see how the American health system works, she said.  Obama’s healthcare plan will be effective in the long term, Lopez said, but she is unsure if it will work in the short run.

Like Wang, Lopez was at the BankUnited Center just to observe.  Lopez said she had voted by mail but wanted to see what was going on at the polling place. She was an Obama supporter, she said. And she felt confident:  “Obama will win the election with no doubt.”

They are a team of four individuals, each finding a way to catch the bad guys. They all speak about special agents and name operations that seem to have been taken out of a Hollywood spy thriller.

In the SEJ conference session “Busting the Bad Guys,” speakers Luis Santiago, special agent-in-charge for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Author Laurel Neme, Jerry Phillips, director of the Florida chapter for the Public Employees for Environmental Response, and Mike Fisher, deputy director of the EPA, each addressed how their agencies are finding ways of dealing with violators of environmental laws.

Santiago, whose office employs 220 agents, and Fisher, whose office employees 18,000 people, each said that their offices investigate and prosecute violators.

“We are not beat cops,” Fisher said.

He was quick to point out that the EPA has detective and plainclothes officers that work together with scientists and forensics who do the analytical work.

Phillips’ group, though not involved directly with law enforcement, makes sure that these agencies are aware of the environmental problems at any given moment. He added that these employees are worried about the political climate and the possible budget cuts that agencies like EPA could have.

Neme, another non-law enforcement agent, is the author of the book Animal Investigators: How the World’s First Wildlife Forensics Lab is Solving Crimes and Saving Endangered Species. She told the audience that the killing of wild animals is a huge business.

“The penalties may seem high (for the perpetrators), but compare it to price of the things being traded,” said Neme.

Each speaker spoke about cases that are both national and international. Cases that are currently under investigations and cases where they’re just awaiting a trial date.

A lot of the examples of crimes mentioned by Santiago and Fisher have been types of businesses that would have generated from thousands to millions of dollars illegally if these law enforcement agencies would not have been there to bust them.

During the SEJ conference on Friday morning, experts Walter Cruickshank, Erik Milito and Elgie Holstein explained that measures are being taken to ensure that if something like this ever happens again, both oil companies and the government will be much more prepared to handle the situation.

One of the largest problems that the industry is dealing with is the need to keep drilling requirements up to date with the ever-continuous development of new technology.

According to Holstein, senior director for Strategic Planning of the Environmental Defense Fund, government must maintain pace with change.

“The technology necessary to keep up with those challenging conditions will continue to evolve and, therefore, the regulatory oversight and the expertise on the part of the government must keep up as well.”

Holstein argued that in addition to all of the new safety regulations which companies must adhere to before obtaining a drilling permit, keeping their machines updated with new technology will be one of the prime challenges of offshore drilling companies.

Along with keeping up with new technology, enforcing stricter safety rules for oil companies is another thing that will lessen the likelihood that a disaster of this magnitude will happen again.

Milito, director of Upstream and Industry Operations for the American Petroleum Institute (API), discussed how in order to obtain an offshore drilling permit, companies are now held to much stricter safety standards.

“Right around the time of the spill [the API] created a new standard, it’s called Recommended Practices Part Two, which in just four months after the spill, was updated with a standard that changed a lot of wording in there from should-do things to must-do things,” said Milito.

There are many new safety standards like this, and now, most regulations require safety precautions that used to only be recommended.

Two updated programs are the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), which are dedicated to spill safety, prevention and response.

One of the results of BSEE, according to Cruickshank, deputy director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, is “for the first time in our agency the creation of an Environmental Enforcement Division.”

This division will provide oversight of the companies to make sure they are complying with the updated safety and prevention requirements.

Many efforts are being made to ensure that nothing like the BP spill ever happens again, however, the next problem with offshore drilling will be different and Cruickshank assured the crowd that safety regulations are being made with many different worst-case scenarios in mind in order to be prepared for whatever may happen.