Joseph Wasilewski, wildlife biologist, captures a wild python on the side of the Tamiami Trail road that cuts through the Florida Everglades, Sept. 16, 2009, near Miami.
(Joe Raedle/Getty Images)A growing population of giant snakes, which devour native species and spread disease, poses a threat to the Florida Everglades ecosystem and could move into other states, according to a new government report.
Florida lawmakers are also concerned that the giant snakes, imported to the country as pets, settle in the state's urban areas, finding their way into backyards, traffic intersections and local businesses. A 9-foot python was found slithering around a Vero Beach neighborhood last week, for instance.
Congress is considering a ban on the importing and selling of certain kinds of pythons commonly kept as pets and found to be reproducing in southern Florida.
"These snakes are a threat to our children, our pets and our environment, and there is simply no safe way for them to be here," said Rep. Kendrick Meek, D-Fla., who introduced the bill.
But the pet industry opposes the new measure. "An import ban does not address the real issue," said Marshall Meyers, CEO and general counsel of the Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council.
A ban could push the trade underground and cause more people to euthanize their snakes or release them, he said.
"In our opinion, the federal law they would be using is not equipped to deal with the specimens that are already in private hands," he said.
Since 1980, at least 12 people in the United States have been killed by pet pythons, including a 2-year-old girl who was strangled in her crib in Orlando in July by an 8-foot-long python belonging to her mother's boyfriend.
The girl's death ignited legislative efforts to curb the sale and interstate trade of snakes -- a $3 billion yearly industry -- for three popularly sold pythons: the Burmese python and two kinds of African pythons, worth up to $10,000 each.
Stretching out a 15-foot python skin before the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security today, Meek lobbied to add the pythons to the "injurious animals" list, an act that would prohibit the snakes from being imported as exotic pets into the United States and moving them across state lines.
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