Giant Creature Invasion: Enormous 16-Foot Creature Overruns Florida Homeowner’s Land

One day, a South Florida homeowner saw a creature underneath his home, which he described as a dark brown and scaly “predator.” It was well over 16 feet in length. He wasn’t the only one, though. Other residents filed a report to the South Florida Water Management District, so officials went out in an attempt to capture this strange creature and hopefully relocate it.

Two men were on an island camping, per an official report, where they claimed to have witnessed a giant creature wandering near the home of a local resident. Also, they allegedly attempted to remove the predator from the person’s porch, but they were met with failure.

Running between Naples and Fort Lauderdale lies Alligator Alley, a stretch of the I-75 Interstate Highway that spans 80 miles. It cuts through the Everglades, which is home to creatures of every size. In 1968, Alligator Alley officially opened years after construction was finished on the roadway.

While an alligator could be a likely guess as to what was found underneath the house, the chances of that were slim. Male alligators grow as long as 13 feet and female alligators only grow up to a maximum of 10 feet. If alligators were ever involved in human conflicts (which are rarely serious), it’s never something to be worried about.

The Everglades consist of a complex and diverse ecosystem. It’s a natural habitat for alligators and hundreds of birds, including white and glossy ibises, crocodiles, manatees, and snakes. Also, several plants and animal species thrive there.

It’s possible that bears, specifically black bears, would fit the description, considering that they do live in the Everglades. Black bears have long and sharp claws that they use as digging tools for food and climbing trees. Eating both meat and vegetables, these bears can weigh anywhere from 300 to 500 pounds.

As the last kind of animal in the Everglades big enough to be mistaken for a stalking predator, manatees couldn’t be it. Often called “sea cows,” they are rotund and extremely docile creatures.

There was a concern by officials that the creature was an invasive species that wasn’t native to Florida. Whatever this animal was, it could have certainly been a threat to the wildlife of the Everglades, as well as its vital ecosystem. After he got the call, Ron Bergeron had to act quickly.

Arriving on the scene, Bergeron, Brian Van Landingham, and Frank Branca confirmed that the creature found in Broward County really was an invasive species. It seemed to have come from far, far away. The creature was a native of Southeast Asia. Quite the traveler, indeed.

After a careful extraction, Ron and his team found that they’d pulled a 16-foot Burmese python out from under the porch space, weighing 165 pounds in total. The creature measured one foot less than the largest snake found in Florida. They noted that it was a female and that she had been guarding a nest.

Burmese Pythons are usually gentle and won’t attack without good reason. However, a python mother can be defensive, but she will usually settle down with some gentle handling. That’s the idea Bergeron and his team went with while dealing with his python and her eggs.

By the time Bergeron and his team had arrived, some of the python eggs had already begun hatching. They captured a handful of the hatchlings emerging from the eggs, with sizes ranging from 10 to 16 inches each. If the team hadn’t come right there and then, another generation of pythons would have been left free to roam.

“The Burmese Python poses a significant threat to the Florida Everglades by disrupting the natural food chain,” Bergeron said. Pythons had already been reproducing quickly and had started to eat the animals already living in the Everglades. 

Female pythons have a higher value to hunters than males. Dusty Crum, an expert hunter, told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel that he mainly searches for female pythons because their eggs are considered a good catch. According to him, you can halt an entire future generation of snakes by catching one female python.

By the 1980s, the Everglades swamps of South Florida had been taken over by one of the region’s most destructive invasive species: the Burmese python. But how did these Southeast Asian natives end up there? Well, enthusiastic snake owners all over the United States had been importing them for years due to their beautiful patterns and colors. 

Even though the Burmese pythons arrived in South Florida only a few decades ago, they’ve already devastated the mammal populations there, severely threatening biodiversity. According to experts, the populations of opossums, raccoons, and bobcats in the Everglades dropped 87.5 percent in 2012 alone.

Not only do pythons eat small mammals and birds—such as rats, rabbits, opossums, armadillos, squirrels, and other rodents—they also consume large reptiles and mammals. Pythons aren’t picky eaters.  One swallowed a whole alligator in Florida. Yes, it’s possible, thanks to the python’s sit-and-wait hunting style.

The best swimmer in the python family is the Burmese python. This snake often hunts its prey in bodies of water, but it is difficult to see a python swimming while it hunts. Some pythons can stay underwater for up to thirty minutes.

Pythons have a similar diet to other snakes. They both eat birds, mammals, amphibians, and reptiles. They sit still and wait for prey to come by. Then they initiate a biting attack on their opponent, following it with a deadly constriction that squeezes their prey to death.

Ron Bergeron believed that the Burmese python he found underneath the porch had traveled a long way to get there. They usually make their home around 20 miles south of Broward County. Bergeron believed that the snake made its way to the Everglades to find shelter, to incubate her eggs.

For years, people in the Everglades reported sightings of Burmese pythons slithering into their homes and basements through windows or drain pipes. After one snake made its way beneath someone’s home, wildlife experts assumed that the snake might have been searching for an ideal breeding area in the region.

This 16-foot python isn’t the first of its kind. In 2013, a 14-foot python was discovered near the Everglades. It was captured by Bobby Hill of the South Florida Water Management District while digesting three adult deer. In that same year, researchers found another 16-foot, 140-pound Burmese python in the marshlands.

Between 2013 and 2017, over 2,000 pythons were removed by hunters. In 2020, 5,000 were captured. Though thousands of pythons have been caught so far, there are still thousands left out there. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is scaling up python removal efforts.

Pythons still have predators of their own. Young pythons may be preyed on and eaten by various birds, hyenas, frogs, wild dogs, and even other species of snakes. Even having grown much larger, fully grown pythons are still at risk from panthers, leopards, and even lions.

As pythons have become an increasing threat to Florida’s wildlife, the state has made it illegal to keep Burmese pythons as pets. By 2017, the Florida Wildlife Commission and South Florida Water Management District launched a program offering a monetary reward to people who can catch Burmese pythons in South Florida.

State Governor Ron DeSantis announced that they would raise the budget on the program, almost triple previous funding. All in all, the program’s budget will grow to $750,000, which will be used to cover all costs associated with the eradication of the invasive Burmese python.

The Python Challenge is an organization that aims to eradicate Burmese pythons in the Florida Everglades. Those who join undergo training on how to catch Burmese pythons.  If you want to know how the hunt works, read on, and we’ll run through some of the hunter’s special tricks.

In an attempt to cut the population of pythons down, state officials have also made hunting pythons a sport. They host the Florida Python Challenge every July, where anyone can compete to capture a Burmese python. During the contest, people have a chance to earn money for each python they capture.

Except for banning Burmese pythons as pets, The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission also banned the breeding of six other types of pythons, including the green anaconda and nine other “high-risk” reptiles.

While recent efforts have focused on capturing the largest Burmese pythons, Auburn University researchers are considering using dogs to sniff pythons out in the wild. They discovered that their dogs could find younger pythons.

In case you were wondering what happens to the pythons after hunters kill them, they are usually fed to the animals they have on their property. Others keep them as trophies or sell them on as material to make accessories like purses and shoes.