Invasives continue to turn up in strange places - please report them if and when you spot them

Pythons swimming in Florida Bay?!  There appears to be no place safe if South Florida environment to encroachment from invasive species. 

I recently received a report of a 5 foot alligator approaching kayakers in the canal that runs along 84^th Street here in Palmetto Bay (a NATIVE Florida species).  They were referred to the South Florida Water Management District where they made the report.  At least that is a native species that we need find a way to live with in peace.  For local gator issues - information on how to live with/report them - see my 6/16/16 posting: "Local Gator? Statewide Nuisance Alligator Program - SNAP. FWC Alligator Management Program".

This post is about the continuing travels of invasive species and how I continue to run into more and more of them in and near Palmetto Bay.  This is my 24^th posting under the “Invasive Species” label.

Christmas 2015 involved two python sightings (both dead).  No such sightings in 2016. No reports of python road kill or being pulled from swimming pools in Palmetto Bay. 

I am posting an article posted online on December 27, 2016 – Miami Herald  - Think sharks are scary? There’s a new critter swimming in Biscayne Bay, By Jenny Staletovich.

We cannot ignore the fact that we have our shares of Python captures in Palmetto Bay.  A prior post from three years earlier (Dec 12, 2012), noted that two large pythons had been removed from Palmetto Bay in 2012.  CBS 4 reported on November 26, 2012, that a “very large” python who made its home on a Palmetto Bay lawn was removed by the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Venom Unit near 180 Street and SW 77 avenue.

But I have not yet received a report of a python swimming in the canal.

The invasive were smaller in 2016.  I posted on my personal Facebook page: "Happy Holidays from the non-native invasive basilisk lizard now making its home in Palmetto Bay" - a Brown Basilisk lizard.  This sighting was at my mother-in-law's near Sadowski.  I had first noticed them at Perrine Wayside back when we were first developing that park into our Dog Park. 

Please report what you see – download the app from the FWC – “IVeGot1” Go to - Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and link over to "Wildlife & Habitats"

See something?  Report it – and please keep me up to date on what you see and report.