At simply after sundown final Friday evening, two vehicles of python hunters solid their headlights upon one thing enormous crossing the street in Big Cypress National Preserve. The animal was so thick that Mike Elfenbein, who’s been looking and fishing in Florida his total life, wasn’t positive what it was. “It was stretched out across the road. It was so huge it looked like an alligator.”
It was an outlandishly fats invasive Burmese python.
Twenty-one-year-old Carter Gavlock, who was within the different truck, hopped out, sprinted to the snake and instantly grabbed the snake by the tail.
“That was a big mistake because the snake damn near took him into the canal,” Elfenbein stated. “There was nothing he could do to stop it.”
Gavlock had caught yearling snakes earlier than, however this was “a dinosaur,” he stated. “I was like, hey, somebody jump on this thing with me. It’s dragging me across the road,”
Elfenbein’s son, Cole, raced over and grabbed the tail as properly, and a tug of battle ensued. As they pulled it to the center of the filth street, it turned on them. “That’s when things got kinda hairy,” Elfenbein stated.
The snake turned on them and shot throughout the street.
Elfenbein realized to hunt pythons from skilled contractor Anne Gorden-Vega, and went for the pinnacle. He held on as greatest he may, proper behind the jaws.
Mike Elfenbein and son Cole Elfenbein maintain the 198-pound invasive Burmese python they helped subdue. The snake was the second heaviest python ever captured in Florida, and weighted in at 198 kilos. (Courtesy Mike Elfenbein)
“Right when Mike went for the head, she turned, almost got Mike, and pulled Mike towards me and almost got a hold of me,” stated Gavlock.
At this level, there have been 5 males on the snake.
“It was powerful to the point where Mike and I were both on the front end of the snake, kneeling down, and it picked him and I both up off the ground. She basically arched and picked us both up and pushed us over to the side,” Gavlock stated.
Both Elfenbein and Gavlock stated it took a superb 45 minutes to subdue the snake.
By the time it was over, “everybody … smelled horribly,” Elfenbein stated. “I was sore the next morning from manhandling that thing. It took all five people all of their energy to subdue that snake.”
Once it was subdued, Gavlock stated it almost didn’t really feel actual. “We’d just met two random people that were willing to jump on a dinosaur-of-a-snake. Once we had her under control we were just cracking beers and hanging out. It was like we won a football game.”
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