WATCH: ‘Monster’ python crossing the road wows Everglades parkgoers. Some say it should have been run over.
Kym Clark and friends were about five miles into Everglades National Park, headed to Flamingo for some wildlife viewing, when they saw a massive object laying across the road. As they neared they realized it was an invasive Burmese python, about 15 feet long.
But they didn’t ease the car around the snake and continue on their way. “I slammed on my brakes and jumped out!” wrote Clark in the comment section of her Instagram post.
She and her wildlife photographer friends circled the snake at a safe distance, taking video and photographs that ended up on social media.
Once the snake spotted the trio of humans, it started to slither off the road — but at a slow pace, as if it was too muscular to move quickly. “He was a monster,” wrote Clark, whose Instagram feed is filled with photographs of Florida wildlife.
At one point, she jokingly said to her friend, “Pick it up, Tippy.” Tippy laughed nervously but did not follow orders.
Destructive invader
Burmese pythons, which are indigenous to southeast Asia, are thought to have come to Florida’s ecosystems via the exotic pet trade. According to the National Park Service, the first record of a python in the park is from Oct. 24, 1979.
The snakes have thrived. They prey on deer, racoons, possums, alligators and other indigenous creatures.
Researchers have found more than 75 species of mammals, birds, and reptiles in their digestive tracts, and medium-sized mammals, once abundant in the park, are now rarely seen. The snakes have established breeding populations as far south as Key Largo and as far north at the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge in western Palm Beach County.
The U.S. Geological Survey says there are “tens of thousands” of the snakes holed up in Florida, with some estimates being as high as 300,000. Females can lay as many as 100 eggs per clutch. The state says that more than 17,000 of the invasive animals have been removed from the wild since 2,000, but there’s currently no large-scale method to successfully remove pythons from Florida’s wilderness.
The largest specimen ever recorded in Florida was 18 feet long, and recently, Florida biologists removed a 5-foot alligator from the stomach of an 18-foot python caught in Everglades National Park.
It’s legal for people to kill the snakes, and in fact, the state runs an annual Python Challenge, giving prize money to those who capture the most and largest snakes.
To kill or not to kill
Clark, who is a South Florida resident and an amateur wildlife photographer, was well aware of the invasive snakes’ destructive effects. “We pinned the location and reported it, as they are a huge threat to our ecosystem,” Clark wrote on Instagram. Commentary flooded in quickly, with several people passionately suggesting she and her friends should have immediately killed the invasive serpent.
“That thing was begging to be run over,” someone wrote. “You could have pinned it under your tire and waited for reinforcements!!!”
Another commented: “Incredibly destructive species; horrible to have to kill it by repeatedly running over it, but a logical necessity.”
“It’s easy to be a Monday morning quarterback,” said Clark in a phone interview. “But they just don’t know. Even if I was the most experienced snake hunter, I could not have taken out a gun, shot it in the head and killed it humanely, in a populated part of a national park. For them to think I could have stopped on a dime and pinned it under my tire and not hurt anybody in my car or any other cars is crazy. I feel like we did what we could.”
A spokesperson for the national park explained that hunting is illegal in the park, and the only people who are allowed to kill pythons within the boundary are staff and licensed python removal contractors. The rationale behind the regulation is that the public might mistake native species for smaller pythons, and kill them inadvertently.
What about detaining the leviathan until park staff could dispatch it? A 15-foot python can weigh nearly 90 pounds and is capable of overpowering alligators and deer. All wildlife should be viewed from safe distances, the park states.
If you do spot a python, either in Everglades National Park or elsewhere, you can call the The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission’s Exotic Species Hotline at 1-888-483-4681, or report sightings at Ivegot1.org.
If outside Everglades National Park, the public can kill pythons, but it must be done humanely. The FWC website explains humane killing methods as a two-step process: 1) render the animal unconscious, and 2) destroy the animal’s brain by pithing — inserting a small rod (a rigid metal tool like a screwdriver, spike or pick) into the cranial cavity.
After the encounter, and the social media tension, Clark said, “I think it’s very sad that, one, pythons are sold as exotic pets, and two, that they’re set free into the Everglades. My friends and I are not in the Everglades that much, and since the end of November, we’ve seen two of them. What are the odds of that? You can see it’s a huge growing problem.”
