Everglades CSI: Unique Scientist Identifies Burmese Python Bird Victims

Worried environmentalists keeping an eye on the damage Burmese pythons are doing in the Florida Everglades have turned for help to a one-of-her-kind forensic scientist at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.

Carla Dove has been asked to identify the slithery predator's bird victims. She does it by analyzing the skimpiest remains from dead pythons' stomachs mere bone fragments and feathers. Most of the work she does is for the aviation industry, which asks her to identify the birds involved in thousands of collisions between birds and planes every year.

In all, Dove has examined the remains of nearly 150 Burmese pythons. She said they snack on just about anything, but in the bird world, she identified some 30 species -- including limpkins, mallards, egrets, herons and wood storks.

According to a Vermont Public Radio piece on her work, "Dove's keen eye and knowledge of feathers have come from more than two decades of practice. She's the only person in the country with these skills, and she worries about the future of this kind of analysis."

Officials at Everglades National Park have actually caught the big snakes in the act of devouring rabbits, foxes, even alligators. And scientists, who list declining populations of a range of mammals in the area, believe the pythons may be slowly wiping them out. Dove's work, they hope, will give them a better idea of how the Everglades' bird population is being affected.