- Title: 'It was going for my throat': Florida python hunters wrestle invasive snakes
- Date: 17th January 2020
- Summary: OCHOPEE, FLORIDA, UNITED STATES (RECENT - JANUARY 15, 2020) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF AYCOCK STANDING IN MOVING JEEP ON THE HUNT FOR PYTHONS (SOUNDBITE) (English) PYTHON HUNTER, THOMAS AYCOCK, SAYING: "Whether you get an 18-footer or you get a hatchling, every python removed out of this ecosystem serves a purpose in restoring this ecosystem." AYCOCK CLOSING GATE VARIOUS OF AYCOCK DRIVING HIS JEEP ROAD / MARSH
- Embargoed: 31st January 2020 11:04
- Keywords: Florida Florida python eradication efforts Florida pythons Thomas Aycock python snakes snakes wildlife
- Location: OCHOPEE + EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK, FLORIDA, UNITED STATES
- City: OCHOPEE + EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK, FLORIDA, UNITED STATES
- Country: USA
- Topics: Environment,Nature/Wildlife,Sport
- Reuters ID: LVA004BWK974P
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Thomas Aycock's life flashed before his eyes one night in the Everglades as a 13-foot Burmese python squeezed his arm and a leg in its coils. Aycock, who was trying to bag the snake by himself, still recalls feeling its tail across his back.
"I know what it's doing, it was going for my throat," said the 54-year-old Florida Army National Guard major who was able to wrestle free during that incident in the summer of 2017. "I said to myself, 'It can't go down like this.'"
That scare has not stopped him from returning again and again to the sprawling wetland, devoting almost every spare moment he has to searching the thick brush and sawgrass for more snakes, as he was doing during this interview.
The state encourages hunters to capture or kill the giant, invasive south Asian snakes that are decimating local wildlife. Dozens of hunters are prowling the Everglades during the Florida's 10-day Python Bowl, which ends Monday, armed with bags and long metal hooks that resemble fireplace pokers. Many take the snakes in live.
Those who capture the greatest number of large pythons will each win $2,000 in cash. Other prizes include off-road vehicles.
Aycock and his fellow hunters are spending days and nights slowly creeping across the webs of levees that span the Everglades by foot, bicycle and souped-up SUV, looking for the glint of an eye or the shine of brown and black scales.
First found in the Everglades around the year 2000, the snakes were introduced by pet owners and possibly a snake research facility that was destroyed when Hurricane Andrew struck the region in 1992.
Since then, the behemoths, some of which measure more than 18 feet (5.5 m) long and weigh more than 100 pounds (45 kg), have wreaked havoc on the fragile ecosystem. A 2012 study in Everglades National Park by the United States Geological Survey found 99% fewer raccoons, 98% fewer opossums and 87% fewer bobcats. Massive snakes have even been found trying to eat alligators.
Agencies including the South Florida Water Management District and the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission have launched python removal programs in recent years, offering hunters hourly wages and bonuses depending on the size and weight of the snakes they capture.
According to a 2019 report, contracted python hunters brought in about 1,900 snakes since the program launched in March 2017.
The success has been hard fought. Despite their size and numbers, which some estimate in the hundreds of thousands, Aycock said it can take eight hours on average to find a snake.
From the start of the program to mid-2018, when the most current data is available, hunters working for both agencies spent 14,000 hours in the field, yielding 1,186 snakes. Some larger females have been found holding up to 100 eggs.
Yet on Wednesday (Jan. 15) night, finding even one proved impossible for Aycock. The cooler weather meant the cold-blooded serpents stayed hidden and out of sight.
"Every python removed out of this ecosystem serves a purpose in restoring this ecosystem," Aycock said.
(Production by Zachary Fagenson, Ben Gonzalez and Roselle Chen) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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