INVADER PYTHONS TIE CHILLING KNOT IN FLORIDA SWAMP
SNAKE hunters discovered a 500-pound pile of
Burmese pythons in Florida — a mound of 11 slithering serpents that measured a whopping seven feet wide!
The terrible tangle was found in marshland in Naples by a team from the Conservancy of Southwest Florida. The group tracks and removes the invasive species, which threatens to decimate native critters — including rabbits, raccoons, foxes, deer, bobcats and even alligators!
McKayla Spencer — Florida’s interagency python management coordinator — explains, “They’ll eat anything.”
The giant beasts, which can grow up to 19 feet long, were brought to the Sunshine State from their native habitat of Southeast Asia through the pet trade more than five decades ago. But after being unlawfully released, they’ve flourished in the wild!
The conservancy estimates the hungry predators — among the largest snakes in the world — are responsible for a 90 percent decline in mammal populations in the Everglades.
Trackers closely monitor the snakes during breeding seasons and use active searching and telemetry to find their lairs — and trap females before they have a chance to lay eggs and further boost the population’s numbers.
Since 2013 alone, the watchdogs have rounded up more than 34,000 pounds of python!
“For ten years, we’ve been catching and putting them down humanely. You can’t put them in zoos and send them back to Southeast Asia. Invasive species management doesn’t end with rainbows and kittens,” argues conservancy biologist Ian Bartoszek. “These are remarkable creatures, here through no fault of their own. They are impressive animals — good at what they do.”