Pythons are wreaking havoc on

Everglades wildlife. Our reporter learns

Hunt
firsthand what’s being done about it.

The

Deadly
for a

Invader
BY RO BERT K IENE R

I
PHOTO/I LLUSTRATION CREDI T

T IS JUST PAST FIVE in the afternoon and I am walking atop

a levee in a gated-off section of the Everglades seldom vis-
ited by the public, some 40 miles west of Miami. The thick,
humid air is swarming with buzzing, whining mosquitoes,
black flies and other insects that I am constantly swatting
away from my face and exposed skin. Millions of chirping, grunt-
ing pig frogs add to this rowdy outdoor symphony.
An occasional jet-black alligator splashes into the water from

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READER’S DIGEST 
its perch on the levee as I walk by;
others eye me suspiciously but stay
put, soaking up the late afternoon sun.
Majestic herons, egrets, anhinga and
countless other water birds burst from
slash pines, cypress, and mangrove
trees and fly overhead.
The 2,400 square miles of the Ever-
glades, known as “the river of grass,”
stretches as far as I can see, dotted
here and there with tree-filled islands,
hillocks, and the sawgrass-heavy
swamp. The scene is as awe-inspir-
ingly beautiful as it is wild. And, as I
will soon learn, it can be extremely
dangerous.
I
HAVE COME to southern Flor-
ida to see how licensed local
snake hunters are helping the
government cope with the re-
cent explosion of invasive Burmese
pythons that is wreaking havoc with
the region’s wildlife by eating almost
everything—from raccoons to squir-
rels to rabbits to foxes—in their path.
Indeed, the New York Times has de-
scribed these serpentine invaders as
“the snake that’s eating Florida.”
Thirty years ago there were no
sightings of Burmese pythons in the
Everglades, now most experts agree
there may be as many as 100,000 to
200,000. And they’re reproducing at
an alarming rate. In a last-ditch, gov-
ernment-sponsored effort to stem this
invasion, the hunters are paid to catch
and kill the powerful snakes, which
can grow to be 20 feet long, as thick
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as a telephone pole and weigh over
200 pounds.
I am tagging along with Tom Ra-
hill, a telecom technician by day and
a python hunter on weeknights and
weekends. He has caught over 500 of
the snakes over the last decade and
become known as “the snake whis-
perer” for his success. Rahill is also
the founder of “Swamp Apes,” an all-
volunteer group that takes military
veterans with post-traumatic stress
disorder into the Everglades. “It’s a
great way to get their minds off their
troubles,” he explains.
As we walk along the levee I watch
Rahill occasionally poke a five-foot-
long forked wooden staff or “snake
stick” into a thicket of dense grass on
a hardwood hammock. He points to a
flattened section and tells me, “This
is prime Burmese python country.
You can see where they’ve tunneled
through the grass.”
As he looks for more telltale signs
such as shed skin, he reminds me
that the invasive pythons have quickly
become the apex predator in the Ev-
erglades. “The local wildlife doesn’t
stand a chance,” he says. “They’ve
eaten nearly all the small mammals in
the Glades and are now even attack-
ing alligators. They are magnificent
animals, but they don’t belong here.”
Rahill, 60, pauses to mop his brow
with a red bandana and adds, “This
invasion has become a tragedy for the
Everglades.”
Suddenly, Rahill stops in his tracks

and starts sniffing the air.
“Python poop is horribly
acrid. Once you’ve smelled
it you’ll never forget it,” he
tells me with a broad smile.
“It’s so easy to walk by them;
pythons are perfectly cam-
ouflaged.” Within minutes
he spots a recently-shed skin
on the ground. “This was a
big one. Maybe a ten-footer,”
he says as he holds up the
days-old translucent tunnel
of shed skin. “I knew we were
in the right place!”
While he continues search-
ing and probing the brush, I
begin poking my own snake “Snake whisperer” Tom Rahill has caught more
stick into the dense under- than 500 Burmese pythons over the past decade.
growth and limestone crev-
ices. As I walk along the levee, care- TO GET THE BACKGROUND of the py-
fully dodging the poisonwood bushes thon invasion, I earlier visited Frank
that can cause a nasty rash, I feel a Mazzotti, 61, a professor of wildlife
hand on my shoulder and hear Rahill ecology and conservation at the Uni-
shout, “Stop! Watch out!” versity of Florida. Mazzotti has re-
I freeze in place and he points out searched invasive plant and animal
a thick, triangle-headed water mocca- species for much of his career.
sin coiled up at the base of a Brazilian As we sit in his sunny, fourth-floor
pepper tree just inches away from my office on the campus in Fort Lauder-
boot and ready to strike. I hadn’t seen dale, I ask him how many pythons
the four-foot long, highly venomous have established themselves in south-
PHOTO/ILLUSTRATI ON CREDIT pit viper (also called a cottonmouth). ern Florida and the Everglades.
“If he’d bitten you,” says Rahill as I “You’ve heard the figures, ‘any-
step away, “your snake hunting days where from 30,000 to 200,000,’ haven’t
would be over.” As rivulets of sweat you?” he asks me. “No one know the
run down my forehead, I make a exact numbers for sure, because py-
mental note: From now on walk be- thons are so hard to spot.”
hind the snake whisperer. And pay After a pause, he looks me straight
attention. in the eyes and says, “What we do
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READER’S DIGEST 
know, however, is there are a lot of
them!” He laughs and says, “And a lot
is way too many!”
Many experts believe the python in-
vasion of southern Florida began in the
1980s when python owners, possibly
disenchanted with their fast-growing
reptiles (hatchlings average 22 inches
and can grow to ten feet long in less
than two years), released them into
the Everglades. “It’s likely that the own-
ers didn’t want to kill them so they let
them escape into the Everglades,” says
Mazzotti. “Big mistake.”
Mazzotti and others also point to the
pet trade as a likely origin of the inva-
sion. They believe, given the snakes’
low level of genetic diversity, that they
were either deliberately or accidentally
released by reptile dealers decades
ago. Some also claim that Hurricane
Andrew in 1992 may have damaged
breeding facilities, releasing the inva-
sive reptiles into an ecosystem where
they flourished.
However they got to southern Flor-
ida, the snakes have quickly become a
dominating force. “They are perfectly
suited to this habitat,” says Mazzotti.
He explains that the Burmese pythons
are both habitat and diet generalists.
“That means, unlike many other spe-
cies, they can easily change their diet
to gobble up whatever is available.”
Mazzotti describes them as vora-
cious eaters or “vacuum cleaners.”
“And they are not overly picky about
where they live.” Even worse news for
their Florida-based prey: They are re-
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markably fertile. A female python can
lay 50-100 eggs per season.
Burmese pythons are skilled am-
bush predators, preferring to lie in
wait for their prey before striking out
at them, grabbing them with their sev-
eral rows of needle-sharp, backward-
facing teeth and then coiling around
their prey, constricting them until they
stop breathing. How effective are they?
A study showed that over the last two
decades pythons were likely respon-
sible for devouring all the rabbits and
foxes in the Everglades as well as more
than 85 percent of the region’s opos-
sums, raccoons and bobcats.
Remarkably, by “shrinking” their vi-
Rahill (far right) leads a team of the Swamp Apes in a hunt for pythons.
tal organs and lowering their metabo-
lism, they can also go without eating Before I leave Mazzotti’s office I ask racers to coral snakes to diamond
for as long as a year. And they are mas- him about the likelihood that this in- back rattlers, and countless alligators,
ters at camouflage; their brown and tan vasion can be stopped or reversed. “I tortoises and water birds, we’ve yet to
coloring helps them virtually disappear think,” he says as he shakes his head, spot a Burmese python.
in the wild. Mazzotti recalls releasing “we are about ten years too late to Tonight we’re taking a different ap-
a 14-foot female, which had been fit- make a difference. I am afraid the py- proach; we will drive slowly along
ted with a transponder, back into the thons are here to stay.” the canals in Rahill’s battered Chevy
I
Everglades. “I was holding her by the pickup truck in the hopes of spotting a
tail but as soon as she slithered into the AM REMINDED OF Mazzotti’s Burmese python on the road or levee.
water, even though I still had hold of “camouflage” quote after sev- As Rahill has told me, “Road cruising
the back half of her, I could no longer eral days of bushwhacking is a great way to spot pythons that have
see the front half of her. It was as if that through the Everglades with slithered out of the Everglades to warm
half had suddenly vanished.” Tom Rahill and failing to spot a single themselves on the road surface.”
PHOTO/ILLUSTRATI ON CREDIT
Many python hunters have reported python. We’ve walked along levees, I meet Rahill near Kendall, Florida,
that the snakes are so well camou- alongside some of the hundreds of some 15 miles southwest of Miami
flaged that they haven’t found them miles of canals managed by the South near the eastern border of the Ever-
until they have stepped on them. Says Florida Water Management District glades. He has outfitted his truck with
Mazzotti, “Imagine the perfect, apex (SFWMD), and have slogged through powerful lights on both sides and the
hunter. Now imagine that hunter is the murky waters of the Everglades front to help us spot the snakes. The
wearing high-tech camouflage. They’re themselves. While we’ve seen many sun is close to setting and just before
that good.” other snakes, from cottonmouths to we unlock one of the water district’s
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READER’S DIGEST 
Writer Robert Kiener with the
python that he and Rahill caught.
gates to start our search, a local resi-
dent approaches us on horseback.
Nicky Garcia, a 66-year-old with a
weather-beaten face and a welcoming
smile, introduces himself and tells us
he has owned his home in the Rocky
Glades area of the Everglades for 30
years. When he learns we are hunting
for Burmese pythons he reaches down
to shake our hands.
“Thank you,” he says. “They got a lot
of my animals!” Over the years, he has
lost more than 60 chickens and three
goats to pythons.
“Go get them. Please,” he says be-
fore he rides off.
AS WE DRIVE alongside a canal with
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our spotlights shining brightly from
both sides of Rahill’s pickup, he re-
minds me what I should be looking
for. “A python on the road in front
of us is easy to spot; it will look like
a speed bump,” he explains. “But as
you look down the levee and into the
Everglades you’re looking for anything
that doesn’t seem to belong; anything
out of the ordinary.”
“If we see a big one, you’ll have to
grab the back end of it while I go for
the head. Think you can handle that?”
he asks me.
“Sure,” I lie.
“Great. One other thing. More than
likely it will poop all over you.”
Now is not the time for second
thoughts, but I suddenly recall a re-
cent story about a 25-year-old Indone-
sian villager who recently went miss-
ing on a palm oil plantation. A day
later he was discovered inside a gi-
ant 23-foot Burmese python that had
killed him and swallowed him whole.
In Florida several years ago, an eight-
foot pet python killed a two-year-old
girl. But I remind myself that python
attacks on humans are rare.
It’s dark now, the moon is full, and
it’s as if we are driving through a tun-
PHOTO/ILLUSTRATI ON CREDIT
nel of light. Rahill is scanning the
levee while telling me “war stories”
about past captures he has made.
He describes the time he spotted a
12-footer as it was slithering down
the levee and into the Everglades.
“The minute I saw it, I slammed on
the brakes, scrambled down the levee
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and grabbed it by its tail just before
it got into the water. It was incred-
ibly strong and I was alone,” he says.
“Somehow, after wrestling with it for
more than ten minutes, I got it back
onto dry land and managed to over-
power it and pack it into an oversize
pillow case. I was sore for a week.”
Another time he spotted a massive
python that had just slithered into the
water. He and a friend grabbed it by
the tail but the snake was so strong
it dragged them both 60 feet into
the water and swam away. “It pulled
us along like we were feathers on a
freight train,” he remembers. “Fright-
ening.”
Just then, as if on cue, Rahill turns
onto another levee and suddenly
shouts, “SNAKE!” There, slowly cross-
ing the levee’s crushed limestone
road, is a Burmese python. He slams
on the brakes, whips open his door
and rushes to the snake. It looks like
a five to six footer (“a teenager but a
strong one,” shouts Rahill). Its thick,
full belly indicates it must have killed
and eaten recently.
Expertly, Rahill bobs and weaves,
dancing around the snake as it strikes
out at him. He then grabs it with one
hand firmly behind its head.
“Grab the tail,” he tells me.
As Rahill holds the head of the
snake I grip its tail and am amazed as
I feel what seems to be solid muscle
while it fights to get free. I tighten my
grip as the snake tries to wrestle itself
away from me and coil itself around
my arm. Then, just as Rahill predicted,
it poops all over me.
My pants are covered with white
blobs of Burmese python poop with
a stinky, sulfurous musk. But I don’t
care. We’ve finally bagged our python.
Rahill and I high-five each other. Later
he will kill the snake and turn it in to
SFWMD for payment—nearly $100
for one of this size. Although it’s just
after three in the morning, he asks
me if I want to keep hunting. I quickly
tell him, “Let’s go!” As Frank Mazzotti
said, there are a lot more pythons out
there.
Editor’s Note: The South Florida Water
Management District recently an-
nounced that licensed hunters had
captured and killed the 1000th Bur-
mese python under its Python Elimina-
tion Program, which began in March
2017. More recently, after resisting for
years, the Everglades National Park
has opened its lands to authorized py-
thon hunters.
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