INVASION OF THE BIRD SNATCHERS
IT’S A SWEATY JUNE MORNING ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF TAMPA, and droves of reptile enthusiasts stream into an air-conditioned expo center at the Florida State Fairgrounds. They are vying to get first crack at the animals of Repticon, a weekend-long extravaganza that’s similar to a baseball-card convention, except instead of mint-condition Mickey Mantles and Pete Roses, there are green anacondas and bearded dragons. One vendor’s table is covered in flimsy plastic catering trays that are filled with ball pythons. Others are selling Asian water monitors, gargoyle geckos, and yellow rat snakes. A guy strolls by wearing a “Snakes Lives Matter” T-shirt. Another man, who has a three-foot-long lizard slung across his chest like a bandolier, is at a nearby booth admiring a young boa constrictor that’s twirling around his girlfriend’s fingers. Price? $100. Sold.
More than 100 Repticons can take place every year, from Phoenix to Oklahoma City to Baltimore, attracting an estimated 200,000 visitors. These shows represent but a tiny sliver of the live-reptile trade, a loosely regulated industry that spans the globe and generates an estimated $1.2 billion in revenue annually, according to the United States Association of Reptile Keepers. In much of the continental United States, these cold-blooded creatures aren’t likely to fare well outdoors, should they escape or be set free. But South Florida is different, and the best adapted haven’t just survived, they’ve thrived. Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, or FWC, has identified 50 types of non-native lizards, turtles, crocodilians, and snakes within state limits, more than anywhere else in the world.
For the birds of Florida, this blitz of exotic predators poses an existential-scale threat. The Burmese pythons, which stalk wading birds in the Everglades, have become so menacing that the state has hosted derby-style competitions to catch them. Farther north, Nile monitors—the largest lizard in Africa—have been terrorizing a population of Burrowing Owls in the city of Cape Coral. And on the outskirts of Florida City, near Everglades National Park, egg-eating Argentine tegus could soon raid the nesting grounds of one of the last remaining populations of the endangered Cape Sable Seaside Sparrow. Each of these
