00:00It gets intimidating with those big ones.
00:11Come on.
00:13Grab them, grab them.
00:15Okay, sit, sit, sit, sit.
00:17You cannot hesitate.
00:18If you hesitate, forget about it.
00:20You'll lose.
00:21Oh, look, you got a beast.
00:25Yeah, I know.
00:26Yeah, Amy.
00:27It is a battle.
00:29It is not easy to catch these.
00:30Sometimes they'll fight you.
00:32I can't overpower a 17-foot python,
00:35so I have to be smarter than the snake.
00:38Invasive Burmese pythons that can get as long as 18 feet
00:42have taken over the Florida Everglades.
00:44With no natural predators,
00:45the pythons are decimating local wildlife,
00:48eating everything from rabbits and birds
00:50to bobcats and even deer.
00:52For Brute, I'm meeting up with Amy Seewee,
00:54who gave up her career as a real estate agent
00:56three years ago to come to Florida and hunt pythons.
01:00Yeah, baby.
01:01He was in there, too.
01:02Oh, damn, I thought he was gone.
01:04That's right.
01:19Okay.
01:22I think we're ready.
01:27Hi, this is Amy Seewee
01:29checking in for a python survey in Big Cypress.
01:40Thanks. Bye.
01:45We are in the western Everglades,
01:47and it's one of the most diverse ecosystems in the world.
01:50It is truly amazing.
01:52It is full of life.
01:54Pythons are not easy to find,
01:56and, you know, people come here thinking,
01:59you know, oh, the Everglades, it's huge, it's amazing,
02:02there's going to be pythons everywhere,
02:04I'm just going to start tromping through the swamp,
02:06and I'm going to find pythons,
02:08and that's what I thought,
02:10and it is not like that at all.
02:12Not at all.
02:13Even though the pythons are doing incredible damage,
02:16because there are so many of them,
02:18they are so difficult to find.
02:20It takes 3 years for a python to reach 10 feet,
02:24and it takes 200 mammals and birds to get it there.
02:28These things live for 25 years.
02:30So, I mean, that's a lot of our native animals.
02:35They'll eat rats, squirrels, birds,
02:38rabbits, raccoons,
02:40billy, bobcats, deer.
02:44We found a python within 10 feet.
02:48We found a python with a doe and two fawns
02:51and are at the same time.
02:53Birds, they eat wading birds,
02:56vultures, they eat everything,
02:58literally everything,
03:00and their numbers are out of control
03:02because they don't have any predators.
03:08Invasive pythons started showing up in the 80s
03:10when pet owners would illegally release them
03:12into the Everglades.
03:14And then, in 1992, the problem was exasperated
03:16when Hurricane Andrew knocked out breeding facilities
03:18freeing hundreds of snakes into the wild.
03:20Now the state has paid python removal contractors
03:23and an annual hunting competition
03:25to raise awareness about the snakes.
03:27But with an estimated 100,000 pythons in the wild,
03:30they can only hope to slow their growth.
03:38I was a real estate broker for the last 13 years in Indiana,
03:41and I learned about the python problem.
03:43I decided to take a three-week vacation
03:45with my fiancé to come down to Florida
03:47to see what it was all about, and we caught a python.
03:49And I was absolutely hooked.
03:51And it was less than two months later.
03:53I just dropped everything in Indiana.
03:55I didn't really know where to hunt them.
03:57I didn't have a job.
03:59I rented a room from a guy from the Internet.
04:02So, on paper, this looked like the dumbest thing
04:05that I could have ever done.
04:07But in my heart, it was the one thing in my whole life
04:09that I knew without a doubt,
04:11this is what I'm supposed to be doing.
04:16I'm meeting Andre up here tonight to hunt this levy
04:20because it's, I mean, it's easier to have two people.
04:23I mean, there's two sides of the levy,
04:25and, you know, I can only cover one.
04:27So I like to hunt this levy with somebody else.
04:30Yeah. There's better places up there.
04:33I've been there.
04:35And I got, like, seven or eight with Ed one time.
04:37But then I went there with Ashley, and I only got one, so...
04:40We are ready whenever you are.
04:42All right, let's do it.
04:49We hunt the pythons on the road at night.
04:53So we basically load up in a truck,
04:55and we are driving down the roads and levies
04:59about five miles an hour
05:01with all of our lights looking for pythons.
05:03And we're looking for them on the sides of the roads.
05:06We're looking for them on the sides of the road.
05:08We're waiting for them to cross the roads.
05:10Wherever we can see them, that's what we're looking for.
05:13And then how late are you out tonight?
05:15I mean, whatever.
05:17What were you thinking, like, 1 a.m.?
05:19No, I mean...
05:21All right, I'm thinking probably 12.30 here.
05:23I mean, depending.
05:25If we're having a good night, then, you know.
05:27Right.
05:30When you're driving all night,
05:32and, you know, you're not finding a python every five minutes,
05:36when you do, I mean, the adrenaline is pumping.
05:39It's so exciting.
05:42Right there.
05:44See him?
05:46Oh, yeah.
05:48Nope, you're not going anywhere.
05:51It's going to be interesting.
06:02Ah, there we go.
06:04Ah, there we go.
06:06There you go, good job.
06:08Woo-hoo!
06:10We got one.
06:12And he is a muskrat.
06:14It's a fat, short one, isn't it?
06:17Yeah.
06:19He's shedding.
06:21Look at that, he's shedding.
06:23It's super dark, too, so you can tell.
06:25Oh, that's why. Yeah, sorry, buddy.
06:27Yeah.
06:29Man, I wish I could help you shed,
06:31because I know it's really uncomfortable.
06:33Sure.
06:35Take a picture of you, buddy.
06:40His eyeballs are moving around.
06:42Hi.
06:44Oh, my God, I spotted him.
06:46He was so dark, it was really hard to spot.
06:49A study in 2012 found that invasive pythons
06:51were likely responsible for the massive decline in population of local wildlife,
06:55including rabbits, foxes, and bobcats.
06:58The state now encourages the killing of these pythons
07:00by both the public and paid contractors,
07:02because they see it as the best way to save their native animals.
07:05We could use my box, I guess.
07:08Hey, thanks.
07:10If you would give me a bag for this,
07:13I would, like, give you one of mine.
07:16Jeez, I think I am.
07:18Don't forget your ghetto go-pro.
07:20I'll grab the snake from behind with the pillowcase on,
07:26and then I'll just kind of scoop him right in.
07:30He's being kind of comatose right now.
07:33Yeah, he's a slow mover.
07:35Yeah, he was really ready to rock, but now he's not.
07:43And that is our first python of the night.
07:48I love all snakes.
07:50I've been fascinated with them since I was a kid,
07:52since my dad put me in the creek and taught me how to catch all kinds of critters,
07:55and for some reason, this fascination with snakes,
07:58just, you know, it's been with me ever since.
08:00And the pythons are just an amazing, they're beautiful.
08:06They're absolutely beautiful.
08:07Wow, look at that.
08:11Look at that.
08:13It's a thing.
08:26Oh, my God.
08:29It is an incredible struggle.
08:31I love the pythons.
08:34I hate that we have to kill them.
08:38It's really hard.
08:42Oh, that is so cool.
08:44We have to get rid of these snakes, but it is incredibly hard.
08:48I mean, you have this big, giant, beautiful animal that you have to put down.
08:52It's heartbreaking.
08:56Once we catch the snakes and we euthanize them, I don't want them to get away.
09:01So then I skin them, I have them professionally tanned,
09:05and then I turn them into products like Apple Watch bands, things like that.
09:10To get a really good skin, it is kind of, it's a lot of work.
09:16So I'm going to start with this one.
09:20It's kind of tedious.
09:22It's kind of gross.
09:25It takes, I mean, it takes a while.
09:30It smells okay, though.
09:38Got one in my mouth.
09:41You know, I've kind of made it my mission to figure out
09:43how to use as much of the python as possible so they don't go to waste.
09:46You know, I can't, I hate the thought of them just being thrown out
09:50and not really honored or anything.
09:52Because it's not their fault they're here.
09:54It's so unfortunate.
09:55It's not their fault, but they do have to go.
09:58The meat isn't very good to eat, so, you know,
10:02their skin obviously is beautiful and it makes amazing leather products.
10:14So these skins have been professionally tanned.
10:19So I've got about 120 python skins here in my house.
10:22And before I bought this garment rack, and you can see, I mean, they're just thick.
10:26They just, like, keep going and going.
10:28And I even have, I have the smaller ones hanging on a rack inside.
10:34So, yeah, I've got tons of them.
10:35Before I got this, though, I had python skins over my couch.
10:40I had them in the spare bedroom.
10:42I mean, I've got them all up here.
10:44I've got all of them here, here, here.
10:53I mean, they're everywhere.
10:56So do you actually have clothes?
10:58They're somewhere in there.
10:59You know, I don't know.
11:00Oh, and I forgot about this, too.
11:02This is a 14-footer that I caught.
11:07She was 105 pounds.
11:09So, like, actually, I'll just.
11:15Yeah, this isn't even the biggest one that I've caught.
11:19But it's big.
11:22I mean, you know, try wrestling that.
11:28And this one is the one that bit me on the hand.
11:30I actually had the outline of the jaws on my hand from this one.
11:37So that is a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth.
11:41And they can also unhinge right here.
11:43So anything that they can get in their mouth, they can eat.
11:47This isn't even with her jaws open all the way.
11:50She could easily eat me.
11:52If they can fit the head in, they can fit the body of whatever the prey is.
11:55And I would be dinner if she wanted to eat me.
11:59So I'm glad that she didn't.
12:01And these are still razor-sharp.
12:04I just got pricked a little bit there.
12:14I've caught close to 400.
12:16That's a lot of pythons.
12:18But that's not even a fraction of what's out here, you know.
12:22We are way past the point of eradication.
12:25We will always have pythons in the Everglades.
12:28It looks bleak.
12:29We haven't found another way that's better than putting hunters out there to find them one at a time.
12:34And they're winning.
12:37But, you know, with every single python that we take out of the Everglades,
12:40we're saving the lives of hundreds of our native species.
12:43And that's what we need to do.
12:45Until we can find something that won't have an adverse effect on the rest of the wildlife,
12:51this is the best way.
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