4 ms·

so can we grind them up and make dog food out of them? Surely there can be some commercial use of them, if not pay a bounty to be rid of them.

sfjailbird 12y ago
Whacking Day! Seriously though, a dollar bounty per head would probably promote some creativity in dealing with the problem.
- chopin 12y ago
  People would start breeding them... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect I admit that a dollar might not be enough to encourage breeding. But I doubt it would be enough incentive for hunting either. AFAIK they are hard to spot...
  - protomyth 12y ago
    I don't think that would happen in the US, its just too little money for a full time job and the neighbors would notice.
dalke 12y ago
The article mentions: > A couple of years ago, they organized a Python Challenge, a come-one, come-all snake hunt on state land near Everglades National Park. It put barely a dent in the python population; no more than a few dozen of them were captured. ... “scientists have not found any way of eradicating invasive constrictor snakes once they become established in the wild.” http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-01-10/killing-pythons-for-cash-lures-hunters-to-florida-s-everglades http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-01-10/killing-py... estimates that it takes 92 hours to find and kill a snake. At $5/hour, assuming under minimum wage, that's ~$500 per snake. Even if they are at the high-end size of 250 pounds/snake, that's $2/pound for the total carcass. More likely they will be smaller, and not all of the snake can be used for dog food. According to http://www.dogfoodproject.com/index.php?page=costfactors http://www.dogfoodproject.com/index.php?page=costfactors , high quality dog food is under $1/pound. According to http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine-archive/2011/august/money/pet-costs/dont-pay-a-premium-for-premium-pet-food/index.htm http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine-archive/2011/aug... from 4 years ago: > At the higher end of the price range was a 4.5-pound bag of Purina Chef Michael's Rotisserie Chicken flavor, at PetSmart for $2.22 a pound Therefore, it's not economical by far to make dog food from them. The market does not appear to be big enough. It would be different if the Pythons tasted like, or produced something like, caviar or truffles. But they don't.
- roel_v 12y ago
  How much would a skin fetch on the market? Next startup bootcamp thing should have a homework project on building a dogfood-and-snakeskin-boot-producing snake hunting robot :)
  - dalke 12y ago
    http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-20509720 http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-20509720 says: >The snake-skin business is extremely lucrative according to this report, which estimates that half a million python skins are exported annually from South East Asia in a trade worth $1bn (£625m) a year. ... That's an upper bound of $2,000 per skin across the entire sales chain. > The nature of the trade is such that there is a strong financial incentive all along the supply chain to use illegal snakes. A skin that a villager in Indonesia might sell for $30 (£19) will end up as a bag in fashion boutiques in France or Italy selling for $15,000 (£9,300). The highest demand is for skins between three and four metres long. It does not seem the market would bear the cost to eradicate Florida snakes, given the high overhead of finding a snake. It's of course possible to increase the market demand. As the article suggests, that would have world-wide consequences. Even if there were a marketing program to promote "ecological Everglades Python skin", there would need to be a verification program that illegal snakes weren't getting into the supply chain, since there would be a strong economic incentive to buy snakes in S.E. Asia for $100 and sell them in the US for $1,000.
  - pantalaimon 12y ago
    You can always create a startup making snake oil ;)
    - roel_v 12y ago
      Lots of competition in that field though :)
- djb_hackernews 12y ago
  >...estimates that it takes 92 hours to find and kill a snake. Found the problem. Make it quicker to find them, or better yet, have them come to you.

sfjailbird 12y ago

Whacking Day! Seriously though, a dollar bounty per head would probably promote some creativity in dealing with the problem.

chopin 12y ago
People would start breeding them... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect I admit that a dollar might not be enough to encourage breeding. But I doubt it would be enough incentive for hunting either. AFAIK they are hard to spot...
- protomyth 12y ago
  I don't think that would happen in the US, its just too little money for a full time job and the neighbors would notice.

dalke 12y ago

The article mentions: > A couple of years ago, they organized a Python Challenge, a come-one, come-all snake hunt on state land near Everglades National Park. It put barely a dent in the python population; no more than a few dozen of them were captured. ... “scientists have not found any way of eradicating invasive constrictor snakes once they become established in the wild.” http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-01-10/killing-pythons-for-cash-lures-hunters-to-florida-s-everglades http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-01-10/killing-py... estimates that it takes 92 hours to find and kill a snake. At $5/hour, assuming under minimum wage, that's ~$500 per snake. Even if they are at the high-end size of 250 pounds/snake, that's $2/pound for the total carcass. More likely they will be smaller, and not all of the snake can be used for dog food. According to http://www.dogfoodproject.com/index.php?page=costfactors http://www.dogfoodproject.com/index.php?page=costfactors , high quality dog food is under $1/pound. According to http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine-archive/2011/august/money/pet-costs/dont-pay-a-premium-for-premium-pet-food/index.htm http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine-archive/2011/aug... from 4 years ago: > At the higher end of the price range was a 4.5-pound bag of Purina Chef Michael's Rotisserie Chicken flavor, at PetSmart for $2.22 a pound Therefore, it's not economical by far to make dog food from them. The market does not appear to be big enough. It would be different if the Pythons tasted like, or produced something like, caviar or truffles. But they don't.

roel_v 12y ago
How much would a skin fetch on the market? Next startup bootcamp thing should have a homework project on building a dogfood-and-snakeskin-boot-producing snake hunting robot :)
- dalke 12y ago
  http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-20509720 http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-20509720 says: >The snake-skin business is extremely lucrative according to this report, which estimates that half a million python skins are exported annually from South East Asia in a trade worth $1bn (£625m) a year. ... That's an upper bound of $2,000 per skin across the entire sales chain. > The nature of the trade is such that there is a strong financial incentive all along the supply chain to use illegal snakes. A skin that a villager in Indonesia might sell for $30 (£19) will end up as a bag in fashion boutiques in France or Italy selling for $15,000 (£9,300). The highest demand is for skins between three and four metres long. It does not seem the market would bear the cost to eradicate Florida snakes, given the high overhead of finding a snake. It's of course possible to increase the market demand. As the article suggests, that would have world-wide consequences. Even if there were a marketing program to promote "ecological Everglades Python skin", there would need to be a verification program that illegal snakes weren't getting into the supply chain, since there would be a strong economic incentive to buy snakes in S.E. Asia for $100 and sell them in the US for $1,000.
- pantalaimon 12y ago
  You can always create a startup making snake oil ;)
  - roel_v 12y ago
    Lots of competition in that field though :)
djb_hackernews 12y ago
>...estimates that it takes 92 hours to find and kill a snake. Found the problem. Make it quicker to find them, or better yet, have them come to you.