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This Burmese python is really hissstoric.
The 17-foot-long, cold-blooded colossus was the largest ever to be removed from the Big Cypress National Preserve in the Florida Everglades – weighing 140 pounds.
The snake, which also contained 73 eggs in development, was captured with the aid of an innovative approach to the fight against invasive species, which poses a major threat to the state's native wildlife. from Sunshine.
"The use of male pythons with radio transmitters allows the team to track the male to locate the breeding females," wrote the reserve on his Facebook page.
"The team not only removes invasive snakes, but collects data for research purposes, develops new removal tools, and learns how pythons use the pool," the report says.
"The team followed one of the sentinel men with the transmitter and found this massive woman nearby."
The reserve posted a photo of four researchers holding the giant reptile in the 729,000-acre swamp area west of Miami.
According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, most pythons found in the Everglades measure between 6 and 10 feet – the largest is 18 feet long and weighs more than 100 pounds.
State wildlife officials estimate that there are 100,000 pythons – native to Southeast Asia – living in the Florida swamps outside of Miami.
Snakes began to appear in the Everglades in the 1980s, probably abandoned by animal owners when reptiles became too big to handle. Some pythons may also have escaped from a destroyed breeding site during Hurricane Andrew's 1992.
To control their population, the state even organizes competitions encouraging people to get as many people as possible, according to CNN.
About 1,600 people registered for the 2013 Python Challenge, hosted by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. The researchers found only 68 snakes.
Two years ago, 25 hunters were paid for python euthanasia as part of a $ 175,000 pilot program by the South Florida Water Management District.
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