17-Foot Long Python Longer than the Size of a One-Storey Building Caught in the US

As part of a research to combat the destructive implications of Python, researchers in Florida chance upon catching a big python. The 17-foot-long (5.2 meters) female snake is longer than a one-storey building is height and weighs around 64 kilograms.

According to the Big Cypress National Preserve, it is one of the biggest pythons ever caught in southern Florida. The researchers found the enormous reptile by using male pythons fitted with radio transmitters, allowing them to track the male and locate breeding females.

In a statement, the National reserve said, “The team not only removes the invasive snakes, but collects data for research, develops new removal tools and learns how the pythons are using the preserve”.

The female snake is also found to be containing 73 developing eggs. In Florida, the snakes have no natural predators and therefore they multiply very rapidly, which is posing significant threats to native wildlife.

The snakes can decimate native wildlife killing small animals such as rabbits, birds and opossums and even eating creatures as big as alligators and deer. The Burmese python is considered an invasive species, it first appeared in the area in the 1980s.

In Southern Florida, the python population is anywhere between 30,000 to 300,000. The interior department of the United States has already banned their importation in 2012. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission have sponsored various hunting programs to target the reptiles.

Though the efforts have failed to restrain their rapid growth. In the year 2019, the Wildlife Conservation Commission has invited suggestions from around the state to seek creative ideas for controlling the monstrous creatures.

Among the ideas that emerged are introducing snake-killing Australian terrier dogs, stringing barbed wire around trees to protect the birds or using drones fitted with infrared sensors to conduct aerial surveillance.

Another idea is to introduce mongooses, which is very popular in Asia for their ability to kill cobras. This idea came from one Victoria Olson of Fort Lauderdale. Victoria Olson also said, “They have been successful in Puerto Rico & The US Virgin Islands to eradicate snakes and yes, they can kill a python”.

Pythons are not known as being a brainy creature, as some of the snakes have choked to death eating golf balls, which they thought were eggs. Therefore one man suggested setting out hundreds of fake such eggs to reduce its number.