A record 17-foot Burmese python was captured in the Big Cypress National Preserve in south Florida. The female weighed 140 pounds and had 73 developing eggs. (Photo: Big Cypress National Preserve)
Florida's war on pythons has escalated to new levels, with a radio transmitter chip in a male snake helping reveal the location of a record 17-foot female captured in Big Cypress National Preserve.
Preserve officials have used the Judas snakes to sssssssecretly locate females in the 729,000-acre grassy marshlands in south Florida. Males are captured, implanted with a radio transmitter chip and released. The chip reveals the location to researchers who then find them again to collect data and try new methods of removing them.
The tracking chips show where the males go in the preserve and, during breeding season, if they move to different areas used by females. It was during such research that officials located the big female python, which took four people to capture and hold.
The behemoth was more than 17 feet long, weighed 140 pounds and had 73 developing eggs. It was the largest ever caught in the Big Cypress National Preserve. The eggs were destroyed and the female python euthanized.
“Using male pythons with radio transmitters allows the team to track the male to locate breeding females,” the preserve wrote on its Facebook page.
“The team not only removes the invasive snakes, but collects data for research, develop new removal tools, and learn how the pythons are using the Preserve,” the social post said. “The team tracked one of the sentinel males with the transmitter and found this massive female nearby.”
Burmese pythons are an invasive species living in the fast marshes of the Everglades and Big Cypress national parks. Some believe they came from smaller snakes being released illegally by citizens, along with escapees from facilities after Hurricane Andrew hit Homestead in 1992. The pythons are a threat to natural wildlife because they eat small game such as rabbits as well as larger animals, including deer and alligators.
The largest Burmese python captured in south Florida was more than 18 feet long. A snake trapper caught it in 2018. Florida wildlife officials believe more than 100,000 pythons live in the south Florida marshes.
