Record Python caught in Florida

Pine Strip · Mar 8, 2013

USGS Multimedia Gallery: (Video)--Record-Breaking Burmese Python (17 feet, 7 inches, 87 eggs) Captured by The USGS, B-roll over 17' long and can eat anything ! :licking:

Stimw · Mar 8, 2013

I want to see the DEAD snake!

creekbend · Mar 9, 2013

I used to go fishing on Lake Okeechobee in Florida with a friend of mine, whose father had a home adjoining one of the canals. When I used a balloon as a float with a Shiner on the other end, the Pythons would attack the balloon. They were are over the Lake. Burmese pythons in Florida - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

daugen · Mar 9, 2013

like a really cheesy B movie, but for real, they're coming, and mothers with 87 potential babies. Yikes.

Sorry, I don't do big snakes or alligators. A good friend of mine as far north as Wilmington NC has alligators in
his local ponds. The problem is they don't taste like chicken...that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
The closer to the Equator you live, the more interesting some of the wildlife can get. No offense to all you moose...
Oh, no foot long bugs either. Unless one is allowed full use of a 22 and a pellet gun.

I grew up with garter snakes, and a few brown/black snakes, and very few rattlers. We had a lot of stone walls back in the woods of our farm and all of us were smart enough to know that snakes liked to bake in the sun. So stay out of their turf...
We had the cutest little garter snake in the stone wall right next to the tractor shed; we all knew he was harmless. But my grandfather was getting on and he saw that thing and used his cane to beat it to death. Don't remember if we bought him a lot of canes...he died when I was very young. As kids we were all upset to see the squished snake, but to my grandfather, any dead snake was a good snake.
Maybe that stuck with me.

boxorox · Mar 9, 2013

there destroying a lot of native speciese google python swallows alligator and look at the snake thate ate a 6 foot alligator.

Pine Strip · Mar 9, 2013

Finally the Country is united about something :cool2:...." ridding the Everglades of a harmful invasive species".
Now how about the Crocodiles in the Philippines !

creekbend · Mar 9, 2013

Pine Strip said:
Finally the Country is united about something :cool2:...." ridding the Everglades of a harmful invasive species".
Now how about the Crocodiles in the Philippines !

View attachment 307214

That "Booger" is huge. Thanks for posting.

dmccarty · Mar 9, 2013

creekbend said:
I used to go fishing on Lake Okeechobee in Florida with a friend of mine, whose father had a home adjoining one of the canals. When I used a balloon as a float with a Shiner on the other end, the Pythons would attack the balloon. They were are over the Lake. Burmese pythons in Florida - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

What year(s) were you seeing the snakes on the lake? Sounds like that should be the title of a movie, "Snakes on the Lake!" :shocked::laughing::laughing::laughing:

I spent quite a bit of time out in the Everglades aka Water Management Districts, during the day and night, and never saw a non native snake. Saw plenty of native snakes though. This was around 1990. Wikipedia said,

A popular animal in the exotic pet trade, a Burmese python (as of 2005) could be purchased for as little as $20. The number of Burmese pythons imported in the U.S. jumped from 17,000 (1970?995) to 99,000 between 1996 and 2006.[7] The first Burmese python was observed in Everglades National Park in 1979, but no more were found until 1995.[10] Between 2001 and 2005, however, the number of pythons observed by workers in water management or ecological restoration efforts or killed by farm machinery in and near Everglades National Park rose to 201, and doubled to 418 between 2006?007, at which time a nest of eggs was also discovered, causing national park staff to determine that pythons had begun breeding in the wild.[7] In 2009, the South Florida Water Management District estimated between 5,000 to 180,000 Burmese pythons were living in South Florida.[citation needed]

Which is accurate from what I saw. or shall I say, did not see.

What I have read, and which makes perfect sense, is that snakes escaped after Hurricane Andrew. I am sure some people released the snakes when they got too large and other's escaped from their owners but I think Andrew at least started this mess. A neighbor kept a python of some kind and I remember when the snake escaped, maybe to the lake. :laughing::laughing::laughing: That kid was really upset the snake was gone and so was my mother!

We had a very large and dense hedge around the back and side yards. The snake was in a pen right next to the hedge so it was almost certain he started his escape in our hedge. Mom does quite a bit of gardening and the idea of that snake in her hedge was not comforting to her. :laughing::laughing::laughing:

Later,
Dan

bullbreaker · Mar 9, 2013

I once came across a python nearly that big close to 30 years ago just west of Miami. This was before Hurricane-Andrew. Lots of exotic snakes,fish,birds etc in S/Fla.

Boone