A slithering, 17-foot Burmese python found at Big Cypress National Preserve in the Florida Everglades weighed 140 pounds and took four people to carry.
What may have been even more unnerving (for conservationists, anyway) was that it contained 73 developing eggs.
That’s because the Burmese python, as its name suggests, is a nonnative species in Florida that is considered invasive and harmful to the area’s ecology. Researchers at the preserve, as they have done with other female pythons, euthanized the huge snake and destroyed the eggs.
“She is the largest python ever removed from Big Cypress National Preserve — and she was caught because of research and a new approach to finding pythons,” the preserve said on Facebook late last week.
The researchers found the snake by using male pythons with radio transmitters to locate breeding females.
“The team tracked one of the sentinel males with the transmitter and found this massive female nearby,” the preserve said on Facebook.
“I wish we could eradicate this species, but I think they are established,” said Cheryl Millett, the manager of the Nature Conservancy’s Tiger Creek Preserve in central Florida, who led a “Python Patrol” program to try to control the snake’s population. “One of the problems with the Burmese python is that it’s an invasive species getting in the way of the area’s natural functioning system. That is why we are trying to eradicate it.”
Burmese pythons can grow to about 23 feet and are native to South Asia. They found their way to Florida decades ago through people who imported them as pets. Many owners underestimate how large the python will grow, and sometimes they let the snakes loose when they can no longer take care of them. Female pythons have the ability to lay 100 eggs, and the snakes multiply quickly.
That has led the python to threaten the biodiversity of the Everglades. The mammal and bird populations in the Everglades began to decline around the time that pythons started to proliferate in the area, according to a 2012 article in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
With expert-level hiding skills, the Burmese python is hard to find and therefore hard to get rid of.
“We tried using python-detecting dogs,” Ms. Millett said of an experiment the Nature Conservancy carried out. The dogs helped, but they needed handlers, and the training made the program too expensive.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has several programs to encourage people to come forward when they see a Burmese python and to train the public to capture them.
The training starts with a classroom discussion followed by a demonstration, and then the trainees practice catching live Burmese pythons, according to Ms. Millett.
“We do encourage them to catch the snakes if they are trained to,” she said.
“We’re doing all kinds of things,” said Carol Lyn Parrish, a spokeswoman for the conservation commission, which now runs the Python Patrol program.
She said the agency had programs for contractors to catch the pythons as well as training for capturing the snakes and cash rewards for turning them in.
“We’ve been actively trying to educate and remove pythons for more than five years,” she said, adding that “right now they are considered a conditional species in the state, which means they cannot be sold or had in Florida.”
But that is not the case in other states. In Louisiana, for instance, people are allowed to have a Burmese python as a pet or sell one as long as they have acquired the appropriate permits and licenses, even though the Burmese python was banned by the United States government in 2012.
Lexin Vincent, 20, of Louisiana owns a four-and-a-half-foot Burmese python named Bernice after paying a breeder $300 for her.
“In Louisiana, they come and check the cages, the house and everything,” Mr. Vincent said of the process to acquire a permit for a Burmese python in the state. “People don’t realize how much detail goes into keeping one of a certain size.”
Mr. Vincent said he was prepared for when Bernice grows to be eight feet long and strong enough to strangle a human.
“I feed her rats for now, but eventually I’ll have to move up to chickens and baby pigs with natural deformities,” Mr. Vincent said. “The risk is worth it.”
