BIG READ Nonfiction feature ANDY KINGSBURY/CORBIS THINK AND READ Cause and Effect As you read, look for facts that tell you how snakes are affecting other animals living in Florida. The Snake That s Eating Florida 4 STORYWORKS JR.
DON T MISS OUR VIDEO READ- ALOUD! Deadly pythons are taking over a beautiful park. Can we stop them? LOOK FOR WORD NERD S 5 WORDS IN BOLD BY LAUREN TARSHIS It was the winter of 2003. A group of people walked through Everglades National Park. This large, wild place is in Florida. It s made up of wetlands. The golden grass stretched out for miles. Frogs croaked. Crickets chirped. The people looked around. They thought they might see a rare bird. They might even see a panther. Æ wetlands: wet, swampy areas WWW.SCHOLASTIC.COM/STORYWORKSJR SEPTEMBER 2016 5
Instead, they saw a strange sight. An alligator was wrestling a huge snake. The snake was a Burmese [buhr-meez] python. The alligator had its jaws around the snake. The snake was wrapped around the alligator. They fought like monsters in a horror film. This fight was the sign of a problem. A big, scaly problem. PAUSE AND THINK: What did the visitors see? Out of Place These big snakes are not from the United States. Burmese pythons are Snake Snacks It can take Burmese pythons weeks to digest some of their bigger meals. Luckily, they don t like to eat humans! a species that comes from southern Asia. But long ago, park workers saw Burmese pythons in the Everglades. This surprised them. How did snakes from halfway around the world get there? The answer is simple. It began about 40 years ago. That s when people started selling Burmese pythons in the U.S. as pets. Baby pythons can seem cute. But these small snakes get big. An adult Burmese python can be longer than a minivan. It can weigh up to 250 pounds. These snakes eat animals, such as raccoons. They even eat deer. The snakes have special jaws. They can open their mouths wide and eat creatures that are bigger than their bodies. PAUSE AND THINK: How did Burmese pythons first get to Florida? species: a kind of animal or plant ISTOCKPHOTO.COM (ALL IMAGES) 6 STORYWORKS JR.
Their head is shaped like a pyramid. Hold On! Burmese pythons are often calm. This one doesn t seem to mind being held by 9 kids at once! JEFF GREENBERG/UIG VIA GETTY IMAGES Set Free People who bought Burmese pythons were often sorry they did. But they were not sure what to do. What would you do with a huge snake that eats live bunnies? Many people set their snakes loose outside. But that was a bad idea. These snakes might have made their way to the Everglades. Other pythons may have been set free by chance. A big storm hit Florida in 1992. Its strong winds wrecked buildings. One of those buildings held a large number of reptiles. Hundreds of baby Burmese pythons were set loose. Some may have ended up in the Everglades. The warm, moist climate there is just right for pythons. PAUSE AND THINK: In what two ways were pythons set free? Snake Invaders Park workers were worried. These snakes could harm the environment. Burmese pythons are climate: usual weather in a place environment: a natural place WWW.SCHOLASTIC.COM/STORYWORKSJR SEPTEMBER 2016 7
an invasive species. That s a species that comes to a new place, takes over, and eats up the animals and plants there. In the U.S., there are many invasive species. They do a lot of harm. The pythons in the Everglades eat a lot. They ve eaten many foxes. Few cottontail rabbits are left. Raccoons and deer are almost gone. So are opossums and bobcats. PAUSE AND THINK: What is an invasive species? invasive: taking over and doing harm A Long Struggle It is now against the law to bring Burmese pythons to the U.S. to sell. But will this new law help? It might be too late. There are a lot of pythons in the Everglades. There may be as many as 150,000. No one knows the exact number. It would be tough to count the snakes. Their brown-and-green scales blend in with the wetlands. This makes them hard to find. It will take work to solve the python problem. Experts are trapping snakes. A website has been set up AL GA FLORIDA Gulf of Mexico Everglades National Park ATLANTIC OCEAN Orlando Miami The Wild Everglades This park, at the bottom tip of Florida, is bigger than the whole state of Rhode Island. The Everglades is home to more than 750 different animal species! MAP BY JIM MCMAHON/ MAPMAN ; TIM GRAHAM/GETTY IMAGES 8 STORYWORKS JR.
Mom and Babies A female Burmese python can lay as many as 100 eggs in one nest. so that people who see a python can report it. A python hunt started this past winter. More than 100 pythons were caught. But there are still far too many snakes. More must be done to solve the problem. As one park ranger puts it, We are at war. Right now, the battle seems a lot like that fight between the alligator and the snake. It will go on for a long time. And so far, it s hard to tell who will win. PAUSE AND THINK: How are people trying to fix the python problem? THINK AND WRITE ISTOCKPHOTO.COM Pretend that your friend in Florida has a Burmese python. He can t care for it anymore and wants to let it go in the wild. Write him a letter explaining what the effects could be. Use details from the story to help you. Send it to Snakes Contest by October 15, 2016. Ten winners will each receive a copy of Florida s Burmese Pythons by Miriam Aronin. See page 2 for details. FIND AN ACTIVITY SHEET ONLINE! WWW.SCHOLASTIC.COM/STORYWORKSJR SEPTEMBER 2016 9