Overview

• South Florida Water Management District, working with the University of Florida, has deployed 120 decoys this summer and is monitoring camera alerts that dispatch contractors to remove snakes.
• The retrofitted toy rabbits emit heat, scent and natural movements, run on solar power, and operate inside small pens watched by video feeds that flag nearby pythons.
• Each device costs about $4,000 financed by the water district, replacing earlier live-rabbit lures that proved too expensive and labor-intensive.
• Early field signals are encouraging, but officials say it is too soon to judge effectiveness as data collection and analysis continue.
• The broader push targets a nonnative population blamed for a 95% drop in small mammals in Everglades National Park, with more than 23,000 pythons removed since 2000 and July’s Florida Python Challenge yielding 294 snakes.