'Creature of a serpent' breaks record for largest Burmese python captured in Florida

It'south official. An invasive Burmese python captured in the Everglades over the weekend has broken the state record measuring 18.ix feet long. The previous tape was 18.eight feet long.

Ryan Ausburn, a contracted python hunter with the South Florida Water Management Commune, and Kevin "Snakeaholic" Pavlidis, a contracted python hunter with the Florida Fish and Wild animals Commission, captured the monster-sized python Oct. 2 forth the L-28 Tieback Canal about 35 miles west of Miami.

On social media, Pavlidis wrote, "On Friday nighttime, we pulled this Brute of a serpent out of waist-deep water in the center of the night, deep in the Everglades. I take never seen a ophidian anywhere near this size and my hands were shaking as I approached her. Every python nosotros grab can be potentially dangerous, but 1 this size? Lethal. One mistake, and I am for sure going to the infirmary. But more than chiefly, this is a once in a lifetime snake. I could go out every unmarried night for the balance of my life and never see one this big again."

Kevin Pavlidis, Ryan Ausburn and Angela Scafuro take hold of a monster-sized Burmese python in the Everglades on Oct. 2. (Courtesy: Kevin Pavlidis, Ryan Ausburn and Angela Scafuro)

Ausburn described the capture as a real "Boxing", saying, "I am just incredibly grateful for this opportunity and an experience I volition never forget. Realize what you accept when you lot take it and cherish the experience in the moment. Be grateful, be respected, and be thankful."

Ausburn said he knew as before long equally he saw the snake "she had some size but it wasn't until we walked to the water'southward edge did I realize how large."

Commonly, snake hunters grab the pythons by the caput but Ausburn had to grab her by the rear and started pulling just "she immediately turned dorsum and anchored herself around a tree. It took every ounce of strength to go along her from slipping away."

More than than 5,000 Burmese pythons have been captured and removed from the Florida Everglades since the state started paying hunters to runway them down in 2017. The python hunter program is managed past the South Florida Water Direction Commune and the Florida Fish and Wild animals Conservation Commission.

Kevin Pavlidis, Ryan Ausburn and Angela Scafuro take hold of a monster-sized Burmese python in the Everglades on October. 2. (Courtesy: Kevin Pavlidis, Ryan Ausburn and Angela Scafuro)

Burmese pythons were first discovered in the Everglades nearly two decades ago.

It'due south believed they became established in Florida as a outcome of escaped or released pets and they are causing serious damage to the fragile Everglades ecosystem by eating native wildlife such equally possum, rabbits, deer, bobcats, and other ethnic wildlife.

It is illegal to release nonnative species into the wild.

They've been successful at reproducing in the swampy Everglades because they have no predators. Females tin can lay upwardly to 100 eggs.

That'south why the land started the bounty plan, in which registered hunters earn a minimum wage rate for upwardly to ten hours of piece of work a day, plus a bonus for their take hold of: $50 for each python measuring up to four feet plus $25 more for each foot measured higher up four anxiety. Hunters who grab a nesting female python earn an additional $200.

Scientists estimate there are between 100,000 and 300,000 pythons in the Everglades.

To learn more than about the FWC'southward Python Action Squad and the SFWMD's Python Elimination Program, visit MyFWC.com/Python and SFWMD.gov/Python.

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