Florida's Invasive Species — Pythons, Lionfish, Iguanas, and What You Can Do

You’re paddling a canal at sunset south of Homestead. The water goes glass. A head pokes up about 40 feet ahead — flat, dark, motionless. You think gator. Then the body keeps going. And going. And going. Twelve feet of muscle slides across the surface and disappears into the sawgrass.

That wasn’t a gator. That was a Burmese python, and there are tens of thousands of them out there with you.

Florida has more established invasive species than any other US state — over 500 non-native plants and animals breeding wild, per the National Invasive Species Information Center. Most aren’t dramatic. A few are catastrophic. Here’s what you need to know to be a useful guest instead of part of the problem.

Florida’s invasive crisis is mostly a pet-trade crisis. The lesson at the bottom of this article matters more than the gear at the top.

Why Florida

Three things stack. Climate — subtropical south, year-round growing season, no hard freezes most years; animals from Southeast Asia and the Caribbean find their native climate here. Biogeography — Florida is a peninsula, easy to enter, hard to exit; no natural barrier to spread. The pet trade — Miami is one of the world’s largest live-animal import hubs. When a hurricane hits a warehouse, when a python outgrows its tank, when a kid’s iguana gets boring — they end up outside. The Everglades python population traces, in part, to Hurricane Andrew (1992) wrecking a snake breeding facility in Homestead.

The big five

Burmese python (Python bivittatus)

Estimated 30,000-100,000 in the Everglades. Native to Southeast Asia. They’ve decimated marsh mammals — raccoons, opossums, marsh rabbits, and white-tailed deer down 90%+ in core python territory.

Legal year-round to kill on most Florida public lands by registered hunters. The FWC Python Challenge every August pays a $10,000 grand prize. The Florida Python Action Team — about 70 contract hunters — gets paid hourly plus bounty per snake removed. They’ve taken out tens of thousands.

You won’t see one easily as a visitor — they’re cryptic and nocturnal. But you’re definitely sharing the Glades with them.

Lionfish (Pterois volitans)

Indo-Pacific reef fish first released off Southeast Florida in 1985 from an aquarium. Now Atlantic-wide, Florida to the Carolinas to the Caribbean. Voracious — over 30 native fish species documented in single stomach contents. No native predators recognize them.

FWC rules are unusually permissive: no bag limit, no license needed for spearfishing them, no closed season. REEF (Reef Environmental Education Foundation) runs derbies up and down the coast. Whole Foods carries fresh-frozen fillets. Restaurants from Key Largo to Pensacola serve lionfish ceviche.

This is the rare invasive you can fight with a fork.

Green iguana (Iguana iguana)

South Florida, especially Key Biscayne, the Keys, urban Miami, and increasingly up the Treasure Coast. Pet-trade origin, supercharged by Hurricane Andrew. They damage seawalls (burrow networks), eat hibiscus and bougainvillea down to stems, and during cold snaps the National Weather Service issues actual “falling iguana” advisories — they go torpid in trees and drop.

Legal to humanely kill on private property in Florida. Don’t feed them. Don’t relocate them (it’s illegal and just moves the problem).

Cuban tree frog (Osteopilus septentrionalis)

Statewide, in your bathroom, on your porch light, in your AC drain line. Arrived as cargo stowaways in the 1920s. Eats native tree frogs.

FWC’s recommended humane removal: apply benzocaine gel (sold for toothaches), wait 15 minutes for the frog to go under, then freeze overnight. Sounds grim. It’s the protocol.

Argentine black-and-white tegu (Salvator merianae)

Central Florida — Charlotte, Hillsborough, Polk counties. Recently confirmed populations in St. Lucie. Big lizards, four feet long, smart, and they eat alligator and gopher tortoise eggs straight out of nests. Pet trade again.

FWC contractors have removed over 10,000 since 2010. Still spreading.

Honorable mentions

Walking catfish (yes, they walk across roads in wet weather). Nile monitor lizards (Cape Coral has a population). Asian swamp eels (drainage canals in Miami). Brazilian peppertree and Australian pine — invasive plants you’ll see along every back road, choking out native hammock.

What you can do as a visitor

• Never release a pet. Federal and state crime. If you can’t keep it, surrender it to an FWC amnesty event or a licensed rescue.
• Eat the problem. Order lionfish where you see it on the menu. Tail of the Lion (Sarasota), Tarpon Bend (Fort Lauderdale), and most Keys waterfront restaurants stock it.
• Report sightings. Download the IveGot1 app or call 888-IVE-GOT-1 (FWC’s invasive hotline). Photos with GPS help researchers track spread.
• Don’t feed iguanas. Encourages density and dependence. Same logic as gators.
• Stay on marked trails. Boot treads carry invasive plant seeds between sites. A 30-second cleanup at the trailhead matters more than it sounds like it should.

Hunting tourism for invasives

This is real and growing. Licensed python hunters can sell certified Burmese python leather — boots, belts, wallets. Lionfish “sushi-grade” markets pay $7-$15/lb wholesale. Several outfitters run guided python hunts in the Everglades for visitors who want to spend a humid night in chest waders.

Tegu trapping is increasingly contracted to private guides. Iguana removal services exist on every Key.

Florida is unusual in paying you to harvest its problem species. Read FWC’s rules before you go.

What it’s not

Not every non-native species is invasive. Florida has plenty of naturalized non-natives that don’t disrupt anything — your backyard mockingbird population is fine, most ornamental palms are fine, the cattle egret arrived on its own and isn’t a problem.

“Invasive” means: non-native + established + causing ecological or economic harm. The label matters because misapplying it leads to bad policy.

Practical card

• IveGot1 app (iOS + Android) — report sightings, identify species
• FWC invasive hotline — 888-IVE-GOT-1
• Florida Python Challenge — annual, August, register at flpythonchallenge.org
• REEF lionfish derbies — schedule at reef.org
• Eat lionfish: Whole Foods (frozen), Tail of the Lion (Sarasota), most Keys waterfront restaurants
• Pet amnesty events — FWC runs them quarterly; surrender exotic pets, no questions

The honest take: Florida’s invasive problem is mostly a slow-motion result of careless pet ownership. The most powerful thing any visitor can do isn’t to kill a python — it’s to never buy a Burmese python in the first place, and to push back on anyone in your life who thinks releasing a reptile into the wild is a kind alternative to euthanasia. It isn’t. It’s the start of the next crisis.