In the Florida Everglades, the largest snake ever captured was: With just his own hands, a python hunter kills a 17-foot monster that was carrying 78 eggs.
A python hunter used only his bare hands to catch a snake that was almost 17 feet long.
While wandering through the Florida Everglades, Dusty ‘The Wildman’ Crum was able to fight the animal.
It is the largest snake ever captured in the national park.
The snake later turned out to contain 78 eggs, which were removed to stop any further snake reproduction.
Crum compared his catch to “Andre the Giant versus Hulk Hogan, WrestleMania!”
Crum is taking part in an initiative to eradicate pythons that the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) launched two months ago.
The 50th Burmese python in the program, measuring 14 feet, 6 inches, was caught by the orchid grower by day. On April 25, it was live-streamed on Facebook.
But at 16 feet, 10 inches, this snake is the largest of his career and the largest ever caught in the Florida Everglades.
Additionally, Crum is compensated generously for performing this risky activity.
With incentives, SFWMD pays hunters like him $8.10 per hour.
There is an additional on-the-spot payment of $50 for pythons up to four feet long and an additional $25 for each foot longer than four feet, depending on the size of the snake they capture.
Crum’s enormous haul, however, only brought in $375, which is what it would have cost to sell the skin.
Even though it wasn’t the biggest snake ever, the snake that was caught during this hunt was the biggest.
The longest and heaviest snake in southern Florida was 18 feet, 2 inches long, and it weighed 160 pounds.
But at 130 pounds, The Wildman’s capture was nothing to sneeze at.
For each killed python discovered protecting nests containing eggs, hunters receive an additional $100; in the instance of this one, 78 eggs were discovered.
Researchers predict that southern Florida is home to between 30,000 and 300,000 pythons, and that this number will only continue to increase.
It terrorizes gators, raccoons, rabbits, birds, and even other invading species.
A typical female can live for twenty years or more, reproduces every other year, and produces a clutch of twenty to fifty eggs.
Currently, the program is quite little. We began 48 days ago…According to Juan Valdes of the SFWMD, 78 snakes were removed.
Crum continued by saying that a single capture might stop several more from escaping from the Everglades.
Why aren’t people catching more snakes when they claim to only be catching one or two snakes? said Crum to WFOR.
Well, by removing the eggs from the ecosystem, we are changing things.
