Overview
- On Jan. 13 in Big Cypress National Preserve east of Naples, python hunter Carl Jackson was dragged about 15 feet after grabbing a 16-foot-10-inch female before his family intervened.
- The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission identified the 202-pound snake as the second-heaviest Burmese python recorded in the state, with a reported 26-inch girth.
- Jackson’s wife, Tasha, son Ryker Young, and stepdaughter Jazzlyn Bateman, newly certified as assistants the day before, helped restrain the snake and tape its mouth.
- At the site, the family located and destroyed roughly 200 egg follicles and later returned to capture an additional male python about 10 feet long.
- Burmese pythons are an invasive species tied by the FWC to steep declines in Everglades small mammals, and the state relies on trained hunters to remove large breeding females.