Credit: Photo via Conservancy of Southwest Florida/Facebook

A snake orgy that weighed roughly the same as three average Americans was interrupted by Florida wildlife officials last month.

According to the Miami Herald, a team of trackers with the Conservancy of Southwest Florida located what’s called a “mating ball” of invasive Burmese pythons on Feb. 21 on public land in Naples. The 7-foot wide ball consisted of 11 pythons, and weighed 500-pounds.
“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,” said Conservancy Biologist Ian Bartoszek in social media post.. “Invasive species management doesn’t end with rainbows and kittens. 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 uses radio-telemetry techniques to locate these mating balls. “Adult pythons are captured, surgically implanted with a radio transmitter, and released back at the capture site,” says the Conservancy. “These individuals are referred to as “scout snakes” for their ability to lead researchers to other pythons during the breeding season.”

According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), female Burmese pythons tend to breed between January and April, and can lay roughly 10–38 eggs.

In 2022, python hunters with the Conservancy of Southwest Florida captured a record Burmese python, weighing 215 pounds and measuring nearly 18 feet in length.

Burmese pythons have been decimating Florida wildlife for nearly 40 years, which has resulted in decreased mammal populations and increased competition for food with natives like alligators and endangered Florida panthers.

It’s unknown exactly how many pythons are currently in Florida, but so far around 15,000 have been killed or removed from the Everglades since 2000.

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This article appears in Mar 14-20, 2024.