Florida man catches a Burmese python measuring 17 feet and 5 inches

Kyle Penniston, of Homestead, Florida, set the new python elimination program record for the South Florida Water Management District on Monday after capturing the 120-pound snake measuring 17 feet and 5 inches. . It's almost as big as a two-story building.

Her hands were swollen by the bites of the female as he struggled.

"She started to wrap me up while I was trying to get her up," according to Penniston's Facebook message. He lost his grip and then held up his stuck pistol.

► August 27th: Cross Indian pythons invade Florida, study finds
► April 15th: Python trackers find record breeding group in Florida
► March 1st: 31-pound Burmese python eats 35-pound white-tailed deer

TO CLOSE

Burmese pythons have devastated the local Everglades fauna and Florida has paid a group of selected hunters to capture and kill invasive snakes. On Tuesday, the 1,000th python was imported, measuring more than 11 feet long. (May 22)
AP

"I fought until we died of energy," he said.

Penniston is a professional python hunter who participates in the district water management program to combat invasive species in Collier, Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties.

Hunters can receive bonuses depending on the size of the snakes.

Burmese pythons – native to India, Southeast Asia and the East Indies – have been reported in the Everglades and other parts of southern Florida since the 1980s. Animals that did not want to keep the fast-growing reptiles might have released them and other snakes could have escaped from a breeding facility destroyed during Hurricane Andrew, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

► December 6th: The man crosses two pythons on the way to take take-away
► August 2017: 20-foot company python found alive 2 months after his escape

According to the University of Florida, their young are so big that they hatch that they have few predators. The snakes, which are among the largest in the world, are sexually mature between 3 and 4 years old and lay about 40 eggs every two years.

They eat mammals and wild birds, even alligators, and also attack cats and dogs. They are comfortable in the water and hanging in the trees, and researchers are afraid to be directed to the Florida Keys, where several species of mammals and birds are on display. list of the federal government in danger of disappearing.

► April 2017: 10 pythons, two of which are 15 feet long, captured in 10 days
► February 2017: Pythons discovered in an abandoned missile base in Florida

Burmese pythons can reach 20 feet and have the circumference of a telephone pole. The longest Burmese python in captivity measured 18 feet at death and over 400 pounds, according to the Chicago Herpetological Society.

According to the South Florida Water Management District, python hunters killed 1,859 invaders, a total distance of more than three kilometers and a total weight of more than 11 tons. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission also runs a program to control this species.