Florida Researchers Fight Pythons With Robotic Bunnies

Snakes.  

Snakes freak me out. Even as a kid going to the Woodland Park Zoo Reptile House snakes still freaked me out. Imagine living in Florida where pythons have turned into a serious problem. 

Back in the 1970s, Burmese pythons were brought to Florida as pets and then when they got too big, they were released or escaped into the wild. And they are frisky little critters, so they multiplied. A classic example of an invasive species. So now how do you get rid of all those horny Burmese pythons? come on, Florida is huge. 

Enter the Robot Bunny. 

According to msn.com,
‘Researchers at the University of Florida have outfitted 40 furry, fake toy rabbits with motors and tiny heaters that work together to mimic the movements and body temperature of a marsh rabbit ‒ a favorite python meal.’ 

The whole mission of these furry little machines is to lure and help capture these Burmese pythons so that conservationists can remove them from Florida's ecosystem. Studies were conducted by university researchers and found that the movement of a little Bunny rabbit is just the perfect kind of thing to attract the Burmese Python and they're just the right size for a snack.  

They found that putting a Bunny in a cage and leaving it out in the wild would attract a Python about once a week. The researchers decided that there was too much labor moving cages around and capturing these pythons, so they decided they needed to multiply their efforts. 

So, they took a toy rabbit, put about 30 electronic components in it, programmed it, solar powered it, and now you have a robot Bunny to attract your Burmese pythons. 

The robo bunnies are an experiment, so they're still working on this project to see if they are actually going to work. So far, they've captured about 100 Burmese pythons. 

The next step is for Robo Bunny 2.0, that one will have everything that the original robot bunny has, as well as bunny aroma. If this works in Florida with Burmese pythons. It might be something that we could apply here in Wenatchee and other arid areas where we have problems with rattlesnakes. 

What do you think?

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Meet the robo-bunny: This tiny, furry robot is taking on invasive pythons in Florida 
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