A 15-foot, 144-pound python was captured by two snake wranglers in the Florida Everglades as part of a pilot Python Elimination Program aimed at removing these dangerous predatory snakes.
Nick Banos and Leonardo Sanchez chased and wrestled the snake before subduing it on Saturday, CBS News reported. Banos told the network that a python that size “could easily take out a 170-pound man.”
It was the largest snake the pair had ever caught, Fox News reported. Their previous record was 14.5 feet. Sanchez told Fox he wants to break the world record for largest python caught. “I don’t want to tie the record, I want to beat it,” he said.
The pythons are rapidly reproducing, then wiping out all of the smaller animal populations in the area, CBS reported. The pilot program is paying selected hunters $50 for each python 4 feet long or under, and $25 for each additional foot above that, making the 15-foot snake worth about $600. An hourly fee is also paid to hunters.
Twenty-five hunters were selected for the program, and they have caught about 10 pythons in the past two weeks in the Everglades, CBS reported.
Last week, a 23-foot long reticulated python swallowed a man whole in Indonesia, killing him.
One Twitter user hoped they would let the snake live (snakes are euthanized through the program).
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