Meet the women hunting giant pythons ‘eating everything’ in the Everglades The Everglades is home to thousands of reptiles and is considered one of the nation’s most important wildlife management areas.
— The fight to save the Everglades continues.
For nearly two decades, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has tried to reduce the enormous number of venomous snakes found in and around the Everglades National Park. Now the FWC is facing a new foe: giant pythons.
Last weekend, one of the largest of the venomous snakes, the Great White, struck down an elephant at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. And this week, officials discovered a large snake has been found dead along a road.
The snake was discovered dead Saturday on a road between Lake Okeechobee and Lake Monroe in southern Florida, the FWC said in a release. On Tuesday, the state Department of Environmental Protection sent a Notice of Violation to a property owner for a lack of permits, according to the FWC.
So far these encounters have killed two giant pythons, according to the FWC, with one that was found dead in a lake last week now on its way to a medical examiner so it can be examined to determine the cause of death. Florida wildlife biologist John DeAngelis said the snakes are about 12 feet long and weigh more than 1,000 pounds.
“It is quite remarkable,” DeAngelis said.
The FWC is working to figure out what killed the snake and what the animal looks like now. It is an autopsy that will take several months.
DeAngelis said they are trying to figure out how to deal with the problem because it is difficult to figure out what the snake looks like and what to do when the snakes do happen to kill someone.
The FWC, which receives $60 million annually from the state for Everglades protection and other projects, said it is working on getting the permits it needs for the pythons.
At the same time that investigators