6,300 Pounds Of Burmese Pythons Removed For New Record In FL

FLORIDA — More than 20 tons of Burmese pythons have been removed from Southwest Florida in recent years, including a record-breaking 6,300 pounds of the invasive snake in the most recent season, the Conservancy of Southwest Florida said Monday.

The organization said the latest record sets a new milestone for its python program. At least 20 tons of Burmese pythons have been extracted within 200 square miles since 2013.

The conservancy, headquartered in Naples, serves Collier, Lee, Charlotte, Hendry and Glades counties. The organization has released video footage of python captures.

“We have been on the front line of the invasive python battle for more than a decade,” Ian Bartoszek, wildlife biologist and the conservancy science project manager, said in a news release. “Removing more than 40,000 pounds of snake, carried out through some of Florida’s unrelenting wildlife habitats, is a heavy-lifting assignment. But, through years of dedicated research, we’ve developed science-based methods to track this apex predator more effectively and mitigate its damage to our native wildlife population.”

Forty pythons, labeled as scout snakes, are being tracked from Naples through the Western Everglades and aid biologists and interns in finding reproductive pythons during the breeding season that starts in November and ends in April, the conservancy said.

Biologists then try to subdue python reproduction by focusing on adult female pythons, the conservancy said. Scientists have been successful in stopping an additional 20,000 python eggs from hatching, the conservancy said.

With this, scout snakes are faced with an obstacle in finding females to mate with or those smaller in size, the conservancy said.

“The Burmese python is decimating native wildlife across their invaded range," conservancy president and CEO Rob Moher said in the release. "Here at the conservancy, we also rehabilitate thousands of injured native animals in the von Arx Wildlife Hospital and release them back into the wild each year. The python team’s work of reducing the local population of the invasive snake allows our native wildlife safer conditions to recover."

Since its inception, scientists with the conservancy's python program has captured the largest female python on record, weighing 215 pounds and stretching out 18 feet long. Another victory includes capturing the largest male python documented, which was 140 pounds and 16 feet long.

“Burmese pythons are impressive creatures that are here from no fault of their own,” Bartoszek said in the release. “As wildlife biologists, we have tremendous respect for all snake species. However, we understand the impact invasive pythons are having on the biodiversity in our area, and we humanely remove them from the ecosystem as part of the conservancy’s commitment to protecting our water, land, wildlife and future.”

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