Python hunters at a animal preserve captured a record-setting 17-foot long python.
It didn’t happen in the Amazon.
The snake wasn’t found in the jungle nor in a remote village.
This massive snake was slithering around Florida — at the Big Cypress National Preserve.
The snake weighed-in at over 140 pounds and had 73 eggs inside.
via NYDN:
The snake is the largest python ever removed from Big Cypress, the preserve announced in a Facebook post.
The preserve added that this python was found using a unique, new method.
“Using male pythons with radio transmitters allows the team to track the male to locate breeding females,” Big Cypress said. “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 team tracked one of the sentinel males with the transmitter and found this massive female nearby.”
Pythons are an invasive species and threaten local wildlife, the preserve said.
The National Parks Service pays python hunters $8.25 an hour to track down pythons in Miami-Dade, Broward, Collier and Palm Beach counties.
Hunters earn a $50 bonus for snakes measuring up to four feet long and an additional $25 for each foot measured beyond that, according to Fox 13. A second bonus of $200 is paid out for each python nest with eggs that is eliminated.
How terrifying.
