WLRN’s environment editor Jenny Staletovich has won a national Edward R. Murrow award for revealing how researchers used radio trackers and sex pheromones to hunt a record-breaking Burmese python. Here is a look at how she sniffed out the story — and why pythons are a 'big deal.'
One of U.S. journalism's most prestigious awards is honoring a very Florida story: python sex rings.
Last summer, researchers with the Conservancy of Southwest Florida announced they caught the heaviest snake on record: a 215-pound female Burmese python. But for Jenny Staletovich the story behind that story was the real scoop.
In a feature titled “It takes a python to find a python: How researchers bagged the heaviest snake in Florida history,” she detailed the scientists’ new secret weapon in the effort to control the invasive species: amorous male snakes.
As insightful as it was eye-catching, the story caught the imagination of judges for the Edward R. Murrow Awards, landing Staletovich the prize for 'Excellence in Writing.'
"Pythons receive a lot of coverage and deservedly so. To be singled out for writing about them in a way that impresses people is a real honor," Staletovich said.
The Murrow awards were created in 1971 by the Radio Television Digital News Association and are named in honor of Edward R. Murrow, a pioneer who set the standard for the highest quality of broadcast journalism. WLRN has won two national Murrows — one in 2021 for overall excellence for a large market and a second last year for Florida Public Media's 'Class of COVID-19' project.
WLRN’s engagement editor Katie Cohen sat down with her after the win to talk about the story and her reporting on pythons over the years.
COHEN: How do you feel about taking home a prize that highlights your python reporting?
STALETOVICH: Really surprised and grateful. Pythons receive a lot of coverage and deservedly so. I’ve been reporting on them for nearly a decade. To be singled out for writing about them in a way that impresses people is a real honor.
You’ve done a lot of stories about pythons over the years. From their territories and their ability to evolve to trapping them and their DNA and eating habits (which likely now includes wading birds). This piece looks at the invasive species from a kind-of unexpected angle: python sex (or as you write in your story, “party time.”) How did you come across this story and what first intrigued you about it?
When the Conservancy of Southwest Florida announced they’d bagged the biggest python in Florida history containing a record number of eggs, the news received a lot of coverage. Everybody likes records.
But what was more interesting to me was the technique of using male scout snakes to track down the females. Egg-bearing females can do a lot more damage to the Everglades than males. So that posed two questions that needed answering: how do the scouts work, and then the bigger question: what’s so special about python sex that you can use it as a trap? The answer of course is mating balls.
What is a mating ball?
That's when a female sends out her pheromones and a bunch of males wrap around her and it's literally a ball of snakes. Researchers know that's one way the snakes mate, so that was the thinking behind the strategy. They can catch reproductive females who can potentially put more snakes out in the wild and they can likely get multiple males. It's like a snake-apalooza.
Did anything surprise you about this piece when you were reporting it?
I’d heard that different agencies were trying scout snakes as a detection method and having some success. But I was surprised to learn that the Conservancy had put together a team of 40 scout snakes, which is a lot. Also, I’ve worked on other python stories with Zoo Miami vet Frank Ridgely. He often implants the radio trackers scientists use to study their habits.
He’s been a wildlife veterinarian for more than two decades and cares for all kinds of animals. So nothing should surprise him. But it was pretty funny hearing him describe python sex.
Pythons aren’t an everyday issue. They’re out of sight and out of mind for lots of us, but you’ve spent a lot of time reporting on them. What drives you to highlight their destruction over other threats (not including sea-level rise, worsening storms or climate change) to South Florida? Why should someone pay attention to these kinds of stories?
Florida has very little untouched wilderness left. Everglades National Park is the only part left of a massive system of marshes and tree islands that started at Lake Okeechobee and spread south to Florida Bay. That means a lot of Florida critters are getting squeezed into smaller and smaller territory. And pythons are voracious eaters.
They’ve already wiped out most of the population of marsh rabbits, raccoons, bobcats and other small mammals in the park and beyond. They’ve moved on to wading birds. So that’s a big deal. It has cascading effects. And it was completely preventable. They were introduced by us. So I think pythons can serve as a real, tangible lesson in the fragility of native Florida and how we humans can so easily and dangerously alter the place.
Burmese pythons have played a huge role in the Everglades — and become a big problem for Florida. And even though scientists have been studying them for decades, we don’t exactly know how many pythons are slithering around South Florida. Do you think we’ll ever really find out?
Pythons are called cryptic predators because they’re so well camouflaged and can hide in plain sight. On a trip with USGS scientists to Big Cypress, a radio tracker showed a snake was under our feet in head high fern and we couldn’t see the 9-foot snake.
The Everglades they inhabit, either the Big Cypress swamp or sawgrass marshes and tree islands or mangrove forests, is really harsh terrain and hard for humans to explore. Estimates have been floated in the hundreds of thousands, but scientists dispute those and say they’ve yet to find a successful way to estimate populations. Rather, they look at range, necropsies showing what pythons eat, changes in other animal population and other factors to estimate where they may have spread.
Are there any updates from this python piece you can tell us about?
In July, the longest python on record was captured in the Big Cypress National Preserve. But at 125 pounds, it was super skinny compared to the 215-pound female. The Conservancy also says its capture load now stands at more than 30,000 pounds of python. The U.S. Geological Survey also published an exhaustive study in February looking at everything they’ve learned so far. That gives you a pretty good idea of where things stand.
Read of excerpt of Jenny's award-winning story below.
It takes a python to find a python: How researchers bagged the heaviest snake in Florida history
When researchers with the Conservancy of Southwest Florida announced they’d bagged the heaviest Burmese python ever captured in Florida earlier this summer, the catch highlighted a secret weapon in the effort to control the invasive snakes: amorous male snakes.
A male python named Dion led the team to the 215-pound female, then went on to find four more female snakes this past breeding season.
“If there's a bunch of haystacks out there and we're looking for these needles in the haystacks,” said wildlife biologist Ian Bartoszek, who runs the Conservancy’s python research program, “the males are the magnets.”
The males can follow the scent of a female python’s sex pheromones during the mating season. The Conservancy, which implanted its first radio tracker in another male snake named Elvis in 2013, now has 40 male scout snakes outfitted with trackers. So far, the snake posse has helped bag about 26,000 pounds of pythons, Bartoszek said.
“So 13 tons of python, with a few people and constant pressure over time by following our male scout snakes,” he said.
Researchers also made another surprising find during a necropsy: the female held 122 unfertilized eggs. Previous estimates on clutch sizes maxed out at about 100.
Read the full story here.
