They look, move and even smell like the kind of furry Everglades marsh rabbit a Burmese python would love to eat. But these bunnies are robots meant to lure the giant invasive snakes out of their hiding spots.
It's the latest effort by the South Florida Water Management District to eliminate as many pythons as possible from the Everglades, where they are decimating native species with their voracious appetites. In Everglades National Park, officials say the snakes have eliminated 95 per cent of small mammals as well as birds.
"We're trying to attract or lure pythons to come from out from other hiding places and come to us," said Mike Kirkland, lead invasive animal biologist for the water district.
The water district and University of Florida researchers deployed 120 robot rabbits this summer as an experiment. Previously, there was an effort to use live rabbits are snake lures but that became too expensive and time-consuming, Kirkland said.
A Burmese python is held during a safe capture demonstration. – AP
The robots are simple toy rabbits, retrofitted to have a heat signature, a bunny smell diffuser and natural movement. They are powered by solar panels and can be switched on and off remotely. They are placed in small pens monitored by a video camera that sends out a signal when a python is nearby.
The total cost per robot rabbit is about $4,000, financed by the water district, he added.
Pythons are not native to Florida but, through escapes and people releasing overgrown pets, they have become established in the Everglades. A female python can lay between 50 and 100 eggs at a time, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Finding definite estimates of the number of pythons in Florida is not easy. The US Geological Survey recently reported a ballpark number of “tens of thousands,” other official estimates run as high as 300,000 snakes.
Since 2000, more than 23,000 of the snakes have been removed from the wild, the wildlife commission says. The robot rabbits are the latest attempt to tackle snakes that average between 10 and 16 feet (3 to 5 metres) in length when fully grown.