What do you think the state of Florida is most known for?
If you asked me, I’d throw out a couple of easy ones first, like being the “Sunshine State,” having miles of beaches, or acting as a theme park destination for the likes of Universal Studios or Disney World.
The not-so-obvious answers would be Tim Tebow, the 2000 Presidential election recount, and my person favorite, being a breeding ground for the invasive species of pythons.
Currently, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission estimates that the total number of pythons living in the Everglades is somewhere between 100,000 to 300,000.
There are a ton of groups who go in and try to remove as many of the large snakes as they can, but with how fast pythons can reproduce, the efforts can sometimes feel helpless.
But that didn’t stop a team of biologists who work for the Conservancy of Southwest Florida to go diving into the Florida Everglades to help mitigate the population spread of the invasive species.
The FWC allows for pythons to be killed humanely on private land, as long as they have the landowner’s permission. In fact, the organization encourages Floridians to do so.
This group of biologists from the Conservancy were in the Everglades to help do their part, and used a high-tech receiver and transmitter to help locate snakes in the wetland area (with the help of snakes that are already marked and tracked).
While tracking a familiar snake named Ronin, they saw another massive Burmese python close by, and decided to move in on it. As Conservancy of Southwest Florida biologist Ian Bartoszek put the snake’s capture in the public statement:
“It wasn’t Ronin! It was a large female python. She was upset and thrashed around, taking all hands to restrain her.”
One they did restrain the python though, which was a tall task, they were able to show off the 16-foot, 120 pound beast. Take a look at the creature that was just slithering around in the Florida Everglades:
The Conservancy had this to say about the massive python’s capture and removal:
“Her humane removal from the ecosystem will keep an additional 50 invasive pythons from hatching this season and many more over future years. To date, the team has removed over 1,200 pythons weighing over 33,000 pounds from Collier County.”
