A team of trackers found 11 pythons — one 16 feet long — forming a 7-foot-wide ball in a South Florida marsh last month, according to the Miami Herald.
The team closely monitors snakes during breeding seasons, using active searching and telemetry to remove invasive species before the females have a chance to lay their eggs.
“For 10 years, we’ve been catching and putting them [Burmese pythons] down humanely. You can’t put them in zoos and send them back to Southeast Asia,” Conservancy of Southwest Florida biologist Ian Bartoszek tells the newspaper, explaining, “These are remarkable creatures, here through no fault of their own. They are impressive animals, good at what they do.”
The Conservancy of Southwest Florida said these pythons are now an established predator in the Everglades and are responsible for the 90% decline in mammal populations in that area.