Posted on 01/09/2017 3:22:16 PM PST by BBell
OCHOPEE, Fla. You hear a big splash in Big Cypress, chances are it’s an alligator diving into the swamp, most likely after being startled from a roadside sunbath by an approaching human.But this was one big splash followed by another big splash. And another and another. I stopped my bicycle to see what all the ruckus was about.
Right there, just off the edge of Loop Road, no more than 15 feet away, an alligator was rising tail first and belly up over the surface of the water and then plunging back down. It was clear it was moving against its will. Then, as the gator rolled over and sank, something else came into view: the muscular coils of a very large snake.
It was a sight, I would learn later, that's rarely witnessed in the wild -- an alligator being attacked by a Burmese Python.
It was all at once terrifying, mesmerizing and beautiful, a battle between predator and prey that at times looked as graceful as a water ballet. Once I got the iPhone video rolling, I couldn’t stop watching.
I’ve seen lots of alligators in the wild, from canoes in Riverbend Park in Jupiter to bike rides in West Palm Beach’s Grassy Water Preserve to hikes in Everglades National Park outside Miami. But until I pedaled my mountain bike along a shell rock road 7 miles south of the Tamiami Trail on the morning of Dec. 21, I had never witnessed the grand spectacle of a gator being attacked by a large coiling serpent.
Aside from the birds perched on cypress branches above the swamp, I was the only spectator. Although I’d missed the initial ambush, what I watched for 15 minutes from my ringside seat wasn’t much of a fight.
(Excerpt) Read more at palmbeachpost.com ...
Can’t be as slow as mine.
My Comcraptic Internet has been up and down all day.
Took me 5 hours to do some work that would normally only take 10 minutes.
They must use some old rusty copper wire or something....
Drain the swamp now.
You put a good bounty on their heads and someone will kill them. Works with nutria rats as their population has been dropping steadily for years. I can't remember the last time I saw one in my neighborhood.
But I will admit that huntin nutria rats is not that difficult as compared to hunting these snakes is.
Same here.
You have to wonder what geniuses allowed it in the first place.
Don’t believe everything you watch on TV
Don’t believe everything you read on the internet
Memory can be unreliable
It’s alien vs predator.
Diversity isn’t always pleasant. Diseases are diverse, cancer is diverse, wild life is diverse. Being killed and eaten by a native alligator or a illegally released foreign snake, neither has any appeal...
Yeah, the alligator is the home team critter.
And don’t underestimate Rednecks!!
It sure as hell didn't swim to Florida.....
They got loose during Hurrican Andrew I guess.
I guess it blew down a place where they kept them. All it takes is a breeding pair.
It was down at green river!
Where have you been? They are now an invasive introduced species. Like nutria rats and kudzu.
I did end up googling Burmese Pythons in Florida and learned that Hurricane Andrew took down some building a few breeding pairs were housed in back in 1992 and it seems that's how this all started ......
Nutria rats arrived much the same way, I believe they escaped from the McElhaney hot sauce family land in Louisiana, originally. I’ve seen one of those big ugly things swimming in a lake up here in North Carolina!
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