Joe is a rare critter in the 'Glades - someone with a considerable amount of time actually spent in the habitats. But the larger problem is the faulty management premises of the Armed & Rangerous from the Department of The Inferior.
Lest one think I am being needlessly harsh, consider this: One such huge python was seen wrapped around a large gator at the Shark Valley facility off US 41. Ranger Randy and Rangerette Jeanette watched the clearly non-native python trying to kill the native alligator. Neither one either captured or simply shot the python.
Both python and snake were reported to have survived the disagreement over the menu that time.
Here's just a remote, barely possible, reason they didn't kill the snake. It will breed and soon there will be reason to have a python control bureaucracy.
It was the Department of the Inferior being inferior. Move along! Nothing new about this!
I found a 10-12 foot python someone had shot with a shotgun and left laying on a trail in a mangrove swamp in South Miami 30 years ago. Scared the bejebbers out of me.