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The recent capture of a 17-foot, 198-pound python in Florida generated national headlines, mostly because it was the second-heaviest python ever caught in the Sunshine State. The main image showed five men posing with the dead python, which, as one meteorologist remarked, boasted a head “the size of a football.” Such captures are indeed noteworthy. Burmese pythons are highly invasive and threaten native wildlife. They do not belong in Florida and the state encourages hunting and removal. But what people rarely see, because the swamp-dwelling reptiles are nocturnal, are giant live pythons roaming in broad daylight.

As you sit there mulling a retirement in the South, approximately 1,000 people are already on their way to Florida today with all their household belongings. Should you join them?Like many baby boomers approaching retirement age and hunting for a warmer climate to call home in their golden years, my wife and I scouted cities and towns in Florida for a possible landing pad — so I had some skin in the game (we decided on elsewhere).But Florida isn’t all about the beaches, Disney World and the massive retirement community known as The Villages. I interviewed experts and residents for...

The crashed plane’s wing jetted out of the alligator and python-invested swamps of the Everglades just long enough for the pilot to survive. . OKEECHOBEE, FLORIDA — After nine hours waiting on the wing of his downed plane in the Florida Everglades, a pilot was rescued by Miami-Dade Fire and Rescue. He was the only person aboard. The plane was registered to a flight school in Homestead, Florida but the school called 911 after they lost contact with the pilot. The plane was a single-engine Cessna Skyhawk 172M that began experiencing trouble close to I-75 in South Broward County. A...

Burmese pythons are killing off mammals that would normally keep Florida's rat population in check. A new study found that parts of the Florida Everglades were becoming overrun with rats as a result. It may be good news for the cotton rats, but it could spell serious danger for humans. Florida's Burmese pythons have been known to prey on birds, reptiles, deer, and even alligators. But one thing they don't seem to have a taste for is cotton rats. And the rats are thriving because of it. ... cotton rats "dominate the community" in parts of the Florida Everglades where...

A 19-year-old Florida man snagged the top prize in the state's 2022 Florida Python Challenge after capturing and removing dozens of the reptiles. Matthew Concepcion was awarded the ultimate prize of $10,000 after he caught 28 Burmese pythons during the annual contest, according to a Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation news release this week. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the challenge has, once again, "yielded impressive results" after 231 invasive pythons were removed during the 10-day competition. "Removing these snakes is one of the many efforts we are employing to restore and maintain the Everglades ecosystem," DeSantis said.

Matthew Concepcion won the prize for the most pythons removed, having hunted a total of 28 snakes. Dustin Crum won the prize for the biggest python removed, having captured a snake measuring 11 feet and 24 inches. A total of 231 invasive Burmese pythons were removed in total from the Florida ecosystem during the 10-day challenge in August, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) announced. Burmese pythons are an invasive species in Florida. They are native to Asia, but they can also survive in Florida's subtropical climate. The snakes were first introduced to the environment in the 1970s—likely...

Python hunter Brian Hargrove, right, is helped by Marcos Fernandez, left, with the South Florida Water Management District, as they measure and weigh the 1,000th python caught in the Florida Everglades. HOMESTEAD — Florida is marking a milestone in its attempt to control an infestation of Burmese pythons in the Everglades. The state has been paying a select group of 25 hunters to catch and kill the invasive snakes on state lands in South Florida since March 2017. On Tuesday, the 1,000th python collected in that program was measured and weighed at the South Florida Water Management District's field office...

The tribesmen have removed 13 pythons in just over a week, including a 16-foot-long femaleFlorida wildlife officials have recruited tribesmen from India in the state's ongoing hunt for Burmese pythons. Irula tribesmen are well-known in southern India for their snake-catching. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission hopes they'll reveal something that has long eluded researchers: a reliable way to track and spot the tan, splotchy snakes that all but disappear in the Everglades. One of the commission's exotic species experts, Kristen Sommers, said in a statement Monday that the state hopes the tribesmen can teach people in Florida some...

South Florida’s most aggressive invasive species has found a new way to grab headlines: slither atop a research platform in Biscayne Bay. Last month, a kayaker spied a 9-foot Burmese python wrapped around part of a platform more than a half mile offshore in Biscayne National Park usually inhabited by sunning cormorants. The sighting was a first for the park and another worrisome sign that the state’s out-of-control pythons are getting more adept at inhabiting the state’s salty fringes. In September, state wildlife biologists confirmed for the first time that the snakes are now breeding in the Keys.

Burmese python invasive to Everglades. The Burmese python, one of the largest snakes in the world, is running amok in Florida. Well, more like slithering amok. So much so that on Saturday, state officials kick off a month-long competition designed to remove as many of the colossal constrictors from the Everglades as possible. More than 600 people have signed up for the Python Challenge, according to Carli Segelson, a spokeswoman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which organized the event. A cash prize goes to the hunter who captures -- dead or alive -- the most Burmese pythons,...

Two huge Burmese pythons were caught and killed recently, one by a homeowner in Missouri’s rural Warren County, and the other by a researcher in Florida’s Shark Valley. Burmese pythons are considered to be a highly invasive species across the American Southeast, especially in Everglades National Park, where the slithery creatures have started to colonize. Experts say the snakes threaten native wildlife species like ground-nesting birds, but it seems that the reptiles also have an appetite for domestic animals as well. For days, a massive 14-foot python had stalked a community near Jonesburg, until residents took matters into their own...

The chance to traipse through Florida's Everglades in search of wild pythons up to 15 feet long has attracted nearly 700 thrill-seekers from throughout the county. The Sunshine State is offering cash prizes in the month-long “Python Challenge,” which begins tomorrow and is aimed at helping to control the exploding population of the non-native Burmese pythons, which have devastated Florida's eco-system. Anyone is eligible for the hunt ... cash prizes of up to $1,500 will be given to hunters who catch the largest and most pythons. The pythons that have nearly eradicated entire native species such as deer, bobcats and...

Watch out, animals of South Florida: It's a wild world out there. There are five species of foreign snakes just waiting to eat you. More troublingly, according to a U.S. Geological Survey report released Tuesday, nonnative snakes like the Burmese python could slither their way north from the warm, humid conditions of South Florida. The big snakes threaten native species and ecosystems because they mature and reproduce quickly, travel long distances and can eat almost anything in fur, feathers or scales, experts say. The 302-page report could be a step toward a ban on importing constrictor-like snakes into the U.S.,...

In an case of real life imitating Hollywood, the US scientific community is increasingly concerned that two nonnative python breeds currently slithering free in south Florida could morph into a giant man-eating swamp coil. The capture of five African rock pythons recently near an Everglades already teeming with the gentler Burmese pythons has scientists worried about so-called "hybrid vigor" – a phenomenon that occurs when interbreeding uncorks volatile recessive genes, passing traits such as aggression onto the offspring. Think Africanized bees. The two species have interbred in captivity. While Burmese pythons aren't known to eat people in their native habitat,...

OXFORD, Fla. -- A two-year-old girl was strangled by a python at her family's home in Oxford. It is unknown whether the snake was a pet and how the child came in contact with the animal. Pythons can kill by wrapping themselves around a human. Whit Gibbons, a professor of ecology at the University of Georgia, told the Associated Press that "A human is just another prey item to a python -- especially a small human. "A 20-foot python, if it grabbed one of us, would bite us and then within just, instantly, seconds, it would be wrapped all the...

Burmese pythons are particularly popular for about $40 wholesale or just under $100 in a pet store, at about the size of a ruler. You feed a little one mice, and then rats, and then as it continues to grow in size and appetite, you offer up chickens and rabbits, the experts say. You watch your snakeling graduate in about three years to a length of 10 or 12 feet, or longer. Ultimately it can reach 20 feet, and the heavyweights tip the scales at about 300 pounds, and live to about 25 years. Their defacatory production is renowned. And...