Don’t learn this text if you happen to’re petrified of snakes. On a recent outing, a group of Florida python hunters wrangled a fully gigantic invasive python—a 17-footer that weighed almost 200 kilos.
Mike Elfenbein was driving by means of Big Cypress National Preserve together with his son late at evening on November 4 once they noticed the enormous snake crossing the highway. “It was headed for the canal on the other side of the road,” Elfenbein, who serves because the Conservation Chair of the Cypress Chapter of the Izaak Walton League of America, tells Field & Stream. “We happened on it at the same time as another vehicle coming the other way.”
A trio of snake hunters from Tampa jumped out of the opposite automotive, Elfenbein says. One of them grabbed the enormous snake by the tail earlier than Elfenbein’s son jumped in to assist. “She didn’t like what was pulling on her so she turned and came right back up on her body at full speed,” he remembers. “I ended up grabbing her by the head, which was like grabbing hold of a football.”
One of the Largest Pythons Ever Captured in Florida
Elfenbein and his son stretched the enormous snake out whereas the opposite hunters jumped on its again. “It took everything we had to keep her pinned down,” he says. “Even with five guys on top of her, she was able to lift us off the ground and keep moving.”
According to an Instagram publish from one of many python hunters within the different automotive, the hunt took place throughout a recent chilly snap. Cold climate is understood to make reptiles torpid and gap up in safe areas. “This beast of a python [is] the second biggest … ever caught in Florida,” Holden Hunter wrote within the Instagram caption. “It’s crazy that these things are all over Florida now, but no expects to see one this big.”
The snake weighed in at 198 kilos and was 17-feet, 2-inches lengthy, which almost places it in document territory. This summer season, a bunch of Florida python hunters wrangled a 19-footer, the longest on document within the Sunshine State. An 18-footer was then captured in August.
Elfebein says the snake’s girth measured a whopping 23-inches in circumference, and a necropsy turned up months-old deer stays inside its abdomen. “She had been eating really good. There were hooves and bones still in her stomach, and she had several eggs in the early stage of development,” he says. “The folks that cut her open said the deer remains had been in her stomach for about two months.”
New Rules Could Restrict Python Hunting in Big Cypress
Elfenbein says he’s fearful a few proposal to show the Big Cypress National Preserve right into a federally-protected Wilderness Area. If designated as Wilderness, Big Cypress would now not be open to autos, he says. And a ban on vehicular journey would severely restrict the general public’s capacity to catch pythons, because the snakes are often noticed by motorist touring the highway with highly effective spotlights.
If the proposal goes by means of, Elfenbein says, scientists and authorities contractors could be barred from utilizing autos to hunt pythons and conduct python-related analysis in Big Cypress as effectively. “We’re trying really hard to stop these snakes from destroying our native wildlife, and the government’s about to make a rule that will make it much harder for us to tackle this problem,” he says. “Why would we create a law that limits our abilities to manage the resource knowing that these are the types of things that the resource is up against?”
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According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, invasive pythons are primarily present in and close to the Everglades, the place they’re wiping out native furbearers and different wildlife species. The snakes are native to Southeast Asia and have few pure predators aside from people. Recreational and paid python hunters play a vital position in limiting the unfold of and harm attributable to the massive constrictor snakes.
