An 18’2 Burmese python was found in Florida on Tuesday. According to Reuters, the snake was killed and taken to the University of Florida for studies and measurements.
The snake was found alive during a routine inspection of levees in the state. It fell short of six inches of the longest snake found in the Everglades, which was 18 feet 8 inches. Up to 150,000 snakes call the wet habitat their home.
The snake population in Florida began to rise after pet owners began leaving turning their pet snakes to the wild after they become too big to care for. This has become a huge problem for the Everglades’ ecosystem as wildlife and natural environments are being distupted by the influx of pythons.
The Wire reported a dangerous, yet somewhat amusing way to combat the growing python population. In 2013, the Python Challenge was initiated.
The Python Challenge called for people who were hungry to kill snakes. The competition required a two-minute online training course for whoever wanted to join, and then they would set out to kill as many pythons as they could. The person with the most kills would get $1500.
Only 68 pythons were killed in the duration of the competition.
Image: Wikimedia Commons
There has been a critical error on your website.<\/p>
Learn more about debugging in WordPress.<\/a><\/p>","data":{"status":500},"additional_errors":[]}