00:00Battlesnakes to pythons. Biologists at the Conservancy of Southwest Florida believe one of their scout Burmese pythons.
00:08World of story, the Everglades is fighting back.
00:11So what could it mean for these apex predators? Gulf Coast news reporter Ryan Arbergast gives us a look.
00:19Over 50 pounds and 13 feet long, but dead, with its neck ripped apart, buried under the brush.
00:27Somehow, something killed this apex predator.
00:32Very quickly we figured out he's dead and it turned into a bit of a, this is a crime scene to some degree. CSI, crime scene wildlife.
00:41Ian Bartizek was on a regularly scheduled tracking mission over the winter, using one of the Conservancy of Southwest Florida's 40-plus scout snakes.
00:50Equipped with these transmitters to find female Burmese pythons and their eggs deep into the wilderness.
00:58He never expected to find his MVP, a most valuable python, taken out.
01:04That's a win for the home team. I was impressed. We all tend to like animals that punch above their weight class.
01:11And so here was a native animal pushing back against an invasive apex predator.
01:17The Conservancy's python team, with the help of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, known in the building as...
01:24A bit of a special forces unit, if you will.
01:27...quickly put up a trail cam, because usually predators come back.
01:32The very next day...
01:33Walking across the log, returning to the scene of the crime was a adult bobcat.
01:39The biologists at the Conservancy of Southwest Florida say that they found this dead snake about 15 miles into the deep part of the Everglades.
01:48Now, they say they've seen interactions like this before, but believe that it means the ecosystem is fighting back against invasives.
01:5525-pound cat killed and cached a 52-pound python.
02:00It's a fight over the homeland, they believe will continue.
02:05So, that gives me hope.
02:07Reporting in the Florida Everglades, Ryan Arbogast, Gulf Coast News.
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