Palm Springs, CA - Pythons & Cycleangelo

Here’s a blog which has absolutely nothing to do with what we are doing. But, since we are doing nothing today, this is all appropriate. Well, I don’t want you to think that we are doing nothing, but I hardly think that laundry, vacuuming, awning lubing and whatever are really something of importance - so important that I’ll write a blog about them. Nope - I found some other interesting topics - at least interesting to me.

PYTHONS

When we were in the Everglades we heard about how Burmese pythons are devastating the wildlife in the Everglades. At one point, we were on a cool tram ride through the north part of the park and we noticed that there were no small animals, squirrels, moles, deer, etc. None. Our guide told us that it was the pythons that were taking a toll on the wildlife in the park. Even the crocodiles. There’s a YouTube video of a python which had swallowed a crocodile. You can look it up. But the ending is: they both died. (The picture is online.)
Here’s a picture from Today.com.
       

How in the heck did Burmese pythons get into one of America’s National Parks? You know the answer: people bought them as pets, found out that they grew to 18’ long and decided to dump them in the wild. In Florida, where Miami is a center for imported exotic ‘pets’, that means into the Everglades National Park. And, they multiply like rabbits. A typical female breeds every other year, produces a clutch of between 20 - 50 eggs and can live for 50 years. It is estimated that there are between 30,000 - 300,000 pythons in the Everglades. They are very secretive animals and difficult to detect. The vegetation of the Everglades is also so thick that they can’t be detected.

How to get rid of the pythons? One solution: have a hunt. And, so the National Park Service instituted a hunt in 2013 & 2016 called the Python Challenge. It’s been successful but they get so few.

Here’s what I read online just a few days ago.

’Hunters captured 106 Burmese pythons during the 2016 Python Challenge, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Over 1,000 hunters participated in the state-sanctioned hunt, wildlife officials said Saturday. The 2013 hunt drew more than 1,600 hunters, who captured and killed 68 snakes.

Some people refrained from hunting in 2013 because they did not want to kill the snakes, which was a requirement at the time. This year, though, hunters could capture the snakes, double-bag them, put them in a labeled, heavy-duty box and drop the live snakes off at state hunt check stations.

There is a growing market for Burmese pythons caught in the Everglades. Brian Wood, owner of All American Alligator in Hollywood, makes everything from Chuck Taylor style tennis shoes to full-length python skin pants. He buys from hunters, paying $50 to $100, depending on the size and condition of the skin.

While these large constrictors are thriving in the Everglades, this species is endangered in most of its home range in Southeast Asia. Biologists there breed and release the snakes in hopes of rebuilding the shrinking population. Here, the snakes eat animals as large as adult alligators, which puts them on top of the food chain.’

So these pythons are still decimating the fauna in the Everglades.

CYCLEANGELO

The second article that I read recently is much happier. It was about Stephen Lund who uses his bike and the streets of Victoria, Vancouver to ‘paint’ designs on the map. Before he rides, he uses an app called Strave to pre-plan his routes through the streets of Victoria and then, as he bikes this route, his GPS ‘draws’ these routes on the map. He has ‘drawn’ giraffes, T-Rexes, Darth Vaders, unicorns and a multitude of animals. He’s also conveyed messages like ‘Happy Birthday’ or ‘So Long, 2015.’

or design his bike ride to create a picture or convey a message or whatever his muse is at the moment. Michangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Stephen Lund designs in the streets of Victoria.
Here’s his Christmas Card.

Check out his website: http://gpsdoodles.com. Here’s some explanation from him of how he got started:

‘It was February 21, 2015 – one year ago yesterday – that I set out early on a Saturday morning to begin a GPS doodle that would profoundly change the course of all the days that followed.

A few days later I posted my GPS-doodled giraffe on Reddit.com, and within a few hours she was circling the globe via Facebook and Twitter. Traffic at this blog, which I’d launched just 10 days earlier, jumped from 59 page views one day to nearly 12,000 the next. It was wholly unexpected and utterly exhilarating.’

And, th - th - th - that’s all, folks.